The sea was crystal clear, impossibly blue and perfect for swimming. The weather was perfect. The food was, for the most part, tasty; the beer, for the most part, cold.

And the sunsets . . . Ahh, the sunsets.

Every night, from our first one in Mykonos to our last in Santorini, we would settle in with the frosty beverage of our choice and watch the sunset. Often, we would take pictures. In fact, we took an embarrassing number of them: 85, plus however many are trapped on the remaining film in our cameras. It would have been more, but my trusty Olympus mu zoom broke in Paros and we didn't replace it until after our first sunset in Santorini. The thing about sunsets in the Greek Islands (we were in the Cyclades, by the way), is that no two are ever exactly the same and that they are all stunningly beautiful.

I took the picture above in Santorini. (Assuming, of course, that I did it right and there's actually a picture there, and not some humiliating amalgamation of gobbledygook. I don't mess around with images much-- or at all, really. But I digress. . . .)

In Santorini we set a personal record of sorts, and watched the sunset from the exact same place every night-- the balcony of the Tropical Bar in Fira, which is right on the caldera. It got to the point that Jeanie, who is a wonderful person that you really ought to stop in and meet if you're ever on Santorini, would tell us to just go sit down at our usual table and she'd bring us our usual drinks-- Amstel for me, and Heineken for Elvis. I started out drinking the local white wine in Santorini, which is nice and crisp and has that sort of steely note you get from grapes grown in volcanic soil, until I figured out that it was playing havoc with my stomach. It's not a sipping wine, really, but it goes perfectly with seafood, especially mussels. The mussels in the Cyclades are especially fine-- plump and sweet and very fresh-- and I managed to develop a deep and abiding passion for mussels done in the Greek style with wine, tomato and feta cheese.

We didn't go to the Tropical, however, to eat. We went to relax on the balcony, to talk quietly, to drink and listen to the music and watch the sun go down. Jeanie plays perfect sunset music-- mellow, a little jazzy. Lots of Norah Jones, the occasional Crash Test Dummies. Torch songs and ballads and a lot of things that I should remember but can't anymore, just that they were absolutely perfect at the time.

Just like the sunsets.