At the first stop, he regaled us with his version of the local history. ‘There was this big head honcho guy, and he totally loved being all-powerful and stuff, and he was totally up himself, so he decided that the people should build a monument to him. And then the people decided they didn’t like being ruled by him, so they revolted and told him to finish building it himself, which he didn’t, ’cause he didn’t know how to do any of that stuff, so the project was abandoned. This arch is all they built before they revolted.’

Duncan motioned to a giant rectangular arch and nodded his head as he regarded it solemnly. Perhaps he was imagining all the Greek slaves telling the big head honcho guy to take his job and shove it. The arch was remarkably intact, but I had seen a lot of ruins when I was touring, and I guess they ruined me – pun intended – from getting excited about an ancient erection. I was more interested in Duncan’s take on history, which got even more entertaining as the day progressed.

‘The people of Naxos built these pigeon houses to house their pigeons.’ Halfway up a giant hill, we had stopped by the side of the road and were looking at a sloping field filled with large clay structures – pigeon houses, apparently.

‘But why did the people of Naxos build houses for their pigeons?’ asked Hannah. It was a reasonable question. Were they carrier pigeons? Were they domesticated? Were they food?

‘Because they thought they were nice,’ replied Duncan. Okay, thanks, Duncan – that clears everything up. The rest of us looked at each other while Duncan, oblivious to the fact that we were all baffled, put his helmet on and climbed onto his scooter. As Gerry climbed on the back, he called out over the sound of the engine, ‘Next stop is for morning tea!’ I liked the sound of that. Maybe we could get Duncan to tell us more about the pigeons.

We rode further into the undulating hills of Naxos and right as we crested another, we pulled off into a dusty makeshift car park next to a cliff-side bar. The view was incredible, and our small group made a lot of noise with all our oohing and aahing. We could see down through the peaks and valleys of red earth to the jagged bays of aquamarine water. It seemed like we were the only souls for miles. Perhaps we were.