We first ran across Kastellórizo entirely by chance. Two young women, both from Perth in Australia, to whom we were chatting in a Berlin wine bar. "No, we're not Aussies," said the bolder of the two. "We're Kassies," she said in an admonishing tone. It turned out that a Kassie is the name given in western Australia to descendents of the several hundred migrants who, a hundred years ago, moved from the isolated Mediterranean island of Kastellórizo to Fremantle and Perth.

Kastellórizo is a quite extraordinary place. It is the most easterly piece of territory that belongs to Greece, even further east than Istanbul. Every Greek island lover knows of the scatter of islands in the eastern Aegean, some tantalisingly close to the Turkish coast: Sými, Kós, Sámos, Lésvos, etc. But few tourists make it as far as Kastellórizo, which is five hours east of Rhodes (Ródhos) on the once weekly boat. True, there are easier ways of getting there (see box).