Romy Sommer

Not the title of a new novel, but my state of being. Thanks to the changeable weather in Cape Town, and returning to a very wet and chilly Johannesburg, I now have a cold. Actually, it's not a very serious cold, except that my head feels ... well, full of cotton wool! While I dose myself full of Vicks Medinite and sleep it off, I'll leave you with a few images of one of our film locations from last week: the beach at Noordhoek, not unsurprisingly known as Long Beach. PS: Sadly I took no pictures of my own, so I owe thanks to Google Search for all these pictures.

It's more than a week since I returned home to South Africa, but here on the blog I still have a whole lot to catch you up on. This holiday just kept on getting better, and trust me, after starting with my first ever romance writing conference, that took some doing. My oldest and dearest friend (not in age, but in terms of the fact that we've been friends since nursery school) and I made a whirlwind visit to Rome. Yes, the Rome in Italy. That city of dashing romantic heroes, ancient ruins, balmy sunshine and ... crowds and crowds of tourists. Even at midnight the Trevi Fountain was surrounded by hundreds of happy sight-seers. Rome might be titled the Eternal City, but for me it will forever be the City of Fountains. We dutifully marvelled at the Pantheon, tramped through the Forum and the Colisseum, window-shopped along the Via dei Condotti, climbed the Spanish Steps, and ate the most mouth-watering pizzas on the Piazza Navona. All in the sweltering heat. But I drew the line at...

Just because it's a hot and sunny Friday afternoon (and nothing at all to do with the fact that I have nothing to say), today's blog post is nothing more than a couple of inspiring pictures taken during my September trip to the Greek island of Corfu. This is how the other half live ... or more specifically, the other 0.05% who don't have to work for a living ...those billionaire heroes we all love. Mandy: I hope that after looking at these, the word counts for your Greek hero start to climb!

At last, the final instalment of my holiday in Greece ... the volcanic island of Santorini. The island is actually the 'lip' of an enormous volcanic crater and part encircles a massive caldera (the basin of the volcano, now filled by sea). At the heart of the caldera lie the two youngest landmasses of the Mediterranean. This picture below was taken on the larger of these two barren landmasses, looking towards Santorini: Santorini is an incredibly popular tourist destination, but where Corfu was very much a family and package tour destination, Santorini attracts a different type of tourist - clearly the kind that has more money to spend because everything here was more expensive. Tavernas in Corfu add chips to every meal. Tavernas in Santorini create works of art. The charm of Santorini is not its beaches, but rather the quaint pedestrian walkways, the awe-inspiring views and the blue-domed churches that epitomise Greece. White-washed villages cling to the rim of the volcanic c...

I chose to visit Corfu to experience two things: the setting for Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and the famous Corfiote beaches. I grew up in a seaside town and hated going to the beach - we looked down our noses at the tourists who flocked to the sea to do nothing but sit on the sand. Now I'm one of them! I knew that Corfu is now a top package tourist destination and has become really built up. I also knew not to expect the island to still be anything like what it was in the 1930s when the Durrell family lived there. Even so, I wasn't quite prepared for the urban sprawl of Corfu Town. The run down buildings seemed to sweat in the heat. I was disappointed. Our apartment was in a resort in the built-up town of Gouvia, with an amazing swimming pool but no real beach to speak of. The kids loved it. Gouvia itself was a little seedy, with empty shops and too much litter, but it had character and it was on all the major bus routes. A day trip into Corfu Town revea...

For those who've requested pictures, you'll have to bear with me. I haven't got the digital pics from my husband yet and I still use a film camera, which means I need to get the negative processed, developed & scanned before I can share them with the world. I know it's old-fashioned but I just love the quality of real film! Now here are the 5 main reasons I love Greece (and most particularly the Greek Islands). I know that one tends to experience a place differently when you're there on holiday, but I still think that if I had the means I'd move there tomorrow! 1. FRIENDLY. The Greeks are the friendliest nation. Everywhere we went people smiled and made conversation. And the Greeks love children. So many people chatted to my girls, patted their heads, offered them cakes and sweets ... not exactly what I want to encourage in this dangerous world, but in Greece you truly feel that it's well-intentioned. 2. EASY-GOING. Despite the legendary Mediterranean t...

This is where I'm currently staying in Cape Town. My apartment is in the building on the extreme right of this picture. The entire complex is high security, ultra modern luxury. Each apartment has views over the marina and each building has a penthouse apartment. There are gardens and pools and walkways everywhere. Definitely a location that inspires romantic fantasy. And this is the view from my colleague's apartment: