Ruins of the Dodecanese: my life on Greece's wild islands

A rich sense of the past lingers amid the villages – many now abandoned – and landscapes of these beautiful Greek islands

The trail winds downhill following an oleander-filled valley towards sapphire sea. If I stop walking, the only sounds are bees and birds. I spot a cormorant on a rock, craning its neck. Crystalline water glints invitingly and I swim with a mask to watch the fish. Drying off on the pink sand, I wander up to the crumbling old stone sea wall, out of which are tumbling shards of broken pottery in varying patterns from who knows when.