I dream of Zakynthos. Of a tranquil backstreet in Zante on Zakynthos Island, where we strolled through the afternoon while our cruise ship floated at anchor between the aquamarine of the Ionian Sea and the egg-shell blue of the wide sky. Quiet, clean, peaceful, pretty, where even the road is paved in marble and sandstone. I dream. Of the blue and the green, and all the flowers and colours in between. Of quiet slow warm afternoons, sun-slanted paved alleys deserted during the siesta, a beige street punctuated with the colours of the shopfronts, a car purring past on the paved road, out of place like a leopard in a drawing room.

On the seaward side, far away between the house fronts, we spied swaying masts accentuating the blue of the ocean behind them. When we looked the other way, a green hillside came and went from our view, the hill that rises behind the town of Zante. Dark, cool, clothed in fir and cypress, promising calm walks and the smells of green things growing. If I had stayed here for a few days, I would have taken a sandwich and a bottle of wine and walked up that hill in the afternoon sun, up winding paths past boulders and copses, sat in the shade and sipped wine till my head spun a little, then put my hat over my face and stretched out under a cypress to sleep it off.

This is Zakynthos. This is the idyll.

Blue domes of Santorini

But even in the Mediterranean sun, some days are rude awakenings. Like Santorini, more than 500km to the south-east, where our ship had anchored two days before Zakynthos... supposedly a glamorous escape, a white and blue idyll out of the travel pages of glossy in-flight magazines....

Sleepy siesta street, Zante, Zakynthos

My abiding memory of Santorini is the smell of mule dung festering in the noonday sun.

As the ship moved into the bay we could see a zig-zag white line down the cliff from Fira to the harbour. The path to the top. It seemed a long long way. But wait! There is a cable car that takes comfort-loving lard-buckets (like me) up from the landing, into the heart of the town. A ride with photo-ops, and no huffing and puffing. We emerged from the cable car station and picked our way through crowded lanes lined with gimcrack shops, out towards the main road that runs from Fira to Io. Inquiries at the taxi stand revealed tourist prices, tourist fares. We dropped the idea of Io and decided to walk around Fira instead.

The walk was an eye-opener. Our expectations came from double-page spreads in travel supplements, and all those Instagram moments. Spoiler alert — those blue domes of Santorini? They are not around every corner. We started by exploring the alleyways, all whitewash and sandstone and stone paving, hints of bright flowering creepers, stunning views over the bay which lay a thousand feet below us, climbing up and up as we searched for that iconic frame. And still no blue-and-white photo-op.... After a while, heat, sweat, sore feet and a raging thirst severely devalued the views. Our sweetest memory of Santorini, really, is of three smiling boys selling cold water off an upended box. Eventually, we did get to see the blue domes. And headed back.

The line for the cable car was long. Very long. We would have had to wait more than half an hour. So we decided to walk down. That zig-zag path? Mistake. BIG mistake. After a while we realised that the sloping steps, the mule dung and scattered straw, the stench and the heat were not limited to the first stretch of the path. It was much too late to climb back up.

By the time we started to slip and fall (and realised the advantages of being well-padded!), the walk down had become torture. Even with good walking shoes, we had to tip-toe down, oh so slowly, just to keep our balance on the slippery stone cobbles. Along the way we saw other unfortunate tourists falling too, some of them obviously senior citizens. To add insult to injury, we had to shrink back against the wall each time a mule train passed us, nonchalantly spreading more ordure as they went by. It took us nearly an hour to reach the bottom of the cliff, and a long session of recuperation in a taverna. Never again. Never in high season. And never ever miss the cable car!

The view from Fira

Stream of time

Which was why Zakynthos seemed so sweet. Unhurried. Peaceful. Soothing.

Time swelled in the soft sun, flowed slow and languid while the breeze wandered through the leaves and the coloured flags. We bought knick-knacks we did not need, pastries we would not eat. Sauntered back towards the seafront, sat below a large white cross, a memorial that we could not decipher because we lack a classical education. Strange that the townspeople seemed mentally closer to us, people from a faraway Asian country, than to the Brits who had exalted their legacy across a thousand years and more, until Anglo and Greco became culturally interwoven in colonies across the world. But the sun was mellow and the breeze was cool, and the mewing of the seagulls was too high and keen to allow much thought.

Taverna in bloom

I yearn to go back, spend slow days and nights in the stream of time, fill my memories with scattered lights and the clop-clop of trotting horses, savour strange food at leisure while watching sailboats skim the blue between sea and sky. But why do I want to see Zakynthos again, and not the more strident rhythms of Rome or Athens? Do I truly seek new milieus, environments? Do I seek beauty? Why would I leave my snug home cocooned in minor privilege?

It struck me, then, that my second view of Greece (after Roger Lancelyn Green’s Legends of Greece and Rome) was the idyllic Corfu of the Durrell family. And when I dream of slow peaceful days by the blue, blue sea, amid the bougainvilleas and the sun-soaked patios, I actually seek a return to a mood, a yearning, from the books of my childhood. I want to lose myself inside a story that I loved.

I dream of Zakynthos.

J. Alfred Prufrock is the pseudonym of a civil servant who spends his spare time travelling, planning travel, or writing about travel