Chania, once the capital of Crete, is a great place for an evening out with its restaurant-lined harbour and faded Venetian buildings; there are markets, museums and monuments but in the evening it’s fun just to wander the cobbled streets hunting out bargains (hand-made leather shoes, silver, fake designer goods) and building up an appetite for some good food.

The Venetians built Chania – they were attracted to Crete for its strategic position – but the Minoans were the first known occupants of the island. Well organised and peaceable, they were the ‘architects’ of European civilisation. They built the first-ever navy – for trade, not war, and they distributed wealth fairly so that even the poor had decent houses. They invented sport and the theatre. They had colourful art. Women held high positions and were responsible for education and culture.

Natural catastrophes apparently triggered their decline. A volcano on Santorini is said to have created a tidal wave so huge it destroyed most of the Minoan settlements.

The latest monument to invasion is a war cemetery in Souda Bay with gravestones of 2,000 Commonwealth soldiers. Nearby, another cemetery commemorates thousands of German dead.

One more period of unrest happened when Greece was ruled by a military dictatorship which ended in 1974. They haven’t had a great deal of time to get used to an easygoing way of life since then but at last, said Dimitris “The Cretans are enjoying the peace again.”

Those evening scenes of neighbours having a sit down and a chat are the perfect symbol of that.