Rhodes

Canberra moored at sea and we were the first to be boated to the harbour and whisked by limo to the best hotel in the town. As we made our way towards the reception and strolled past the pool with the children longing to get in, we saw glass bottles and glasses all over the place, some already broken.

There had been an important EU related meeting the day/night before. I seem to have memories of a Mrs Thatcher being there but may be wrong.

Our host turned to the shipping agent who had arranged our day suites and said: "Get us to a proper hotel, I don't care where just not here".

Lots of people running around and we were whisked away quite a long way out of town to a "normal" holiday hotel on the south coast, directly on the beach and full of Germans!.

Germany was going through the fall of the iron curtain with hundreds of East Germans invading Hungary and trying to get through to Austria. On this day, the Hungarian police were doing their best to keep them away from the Austrian border but could do nothing to stem the flow of East Germans who could legally travel to Hungary for their summer holidays.

We spent a great day on the beach and eve had a rather nice lunch on a large old wooden Greek sailing yacht sent to "compensate" for the unpleasant morning events.

Late afternoon, drove back to Rhodes Town and had a lovely stroll around the historic town before re-boarding in the evening.