We strongly recommend that you arrive at Kos airport today no later than 12.00 noon, when tour leader Nadia Wheatley will meet the group to travel together to the small port of Mastichari. Flight schedules for June 2026 have not yet been released, but please liaise with Limelight Arts Travel before you book your arrival flight onto Kos.

At Mastichari, you embark by ferry for Pothia, the port town of Kalymnos where Clift and her family spent nine months in 1955. Since then, the sponge fleets have gone but Pothia is still an authentic working port and not a tourist trap. The group will stay at the Villa Melina, built by a sponge merchant in the Italianate style and reminiscent of the villa in Clift’s novel Honour’s Mimic. After settling in, there will be time for a stroll, a swim in the pool, or a visit to the nearby supermarket. The evening workshop will be followed by a welcome dinner on the waterfront at one of the island’s best seafood restaurants. First of nine nights in Pothia.

The group gathers after breakfast for the first reading and discussion workshop. Its theme is Clift’s aim of ‘looking for a mermaid’ on Kalymnos. What did she mean? And what sort of mermaids do we ourselves hope to find in our time here? Nadia provides background about the history and geography of Pothia and Kalymnos before your first excursion takes you to the west side of the waterfront, to view Clift’s ‘yellow house’ and explore her neighbourhood, the parish of St Nicholas. Walking back around the waterfront towards the east, you will visit one of the last sponge warehouses still operating in Kalymnos. After lunch at a restaurant overlooking the fishing harbour, there is time at the hotel to write up your observations before the evening workshop.

After breakfast, walk to the waterfront to meet the boat that will take you to Rina, the tiny harbour at the end of a gorge that cuts like a knife between dramatically steep cliffs. There is time here for a coffee and a stroll, and perhaps even a dip from the edge of the jetty, before the minibus takes the group to the fertile valley of Vathy, site of the island’s main agricultural area. In Vathy, visit three early Christian churches, walking through citrus orchards and vineyards, before continuing by bus to the village of Emporios on the northernmost tip of the island for lunch at a waterfront taverna with a spectacular view. Afterwards, return to Pothia via the west coast road. With so much seen today, your only difficulty will be choosing which of your journal observations you want to share at the evening workshop.

In Mermaid Singing, Charmian Clift describes the cultural effects of the island’s economic dependency on sponge diving: the wild courage of the divers, the tragedies of drowning and disability, and also the unique matriarchal society that developed in response to the long absences of the seafarers. In Honour’s Mimic she further dramatises the lifestyle of the divers. This morning’s workshop is devoted to exploring this complex Kalymnian cultural legacy. At the Maritime Museum, the Folklore Museum and the Cultural Centre, you will see artefacts ranging from sponge-diving equipment to women’s costumes and embroidery. Lunch is at leisure, followed by time for writing, swimming or personal explorations. The focus for the evening workshop is Clift’s understanding of the role of women on the island, and the effect that this aspect of Kalymnian culture had on her feminism. Afterwards, there is dinner in a Pothia restaurant to celebrate the ongoing culture of Kalymnian women.

You will set off by bus after breakfast for the inland village of Chora, where you will make your way up the steep path to the ruins of the citadel where the two lovers meet in Honour’s Mimic. Inside the walls of the fortress, a hillside of rocks and wild herbs leads to a number of tiny Byzantine chapels with ancient frescoes on their whitewashed walls. After visiting a couple of chapels, the group will gather to map the landscape to the north and south. The aim is not to produce artworks, but to increase your observational and writing skills, and your understanding of the island’s history and geography. There is lunch in a café on the return to Pothia, followed by time to write or relax. The evening workshop will focus on Honour’s Mimic, with reference to the way the author uses the place and culture of Kalymnos as the driving force for her plot. The evening is at leisure.

This morning’s workshop will take place at the town’s Archaeological Museum, where the renowned Hellenistic statue known as ‘the Kalymnian Lady’ is displayed alongside Minoan and Neolithic findings that shed light on the historic roles of men and women on the island. Under Nadia’s guidance, you will choose artefacts for observational journaling. Afterwards, return to Villa Melina for a guided writing workshop — turning your observations into creative writing, perhaps even fiction. Lunch and the afternoon are at leisure, for further writing or exploration. Share your writing in an evening workshop, before dinner at leisure.

After a morning workshop, the day is yours, to devote to your writing, take a swim or undertake some personal explorations of the island. Nadia can provide advice on making a day trip to Telendos island, with its archaeological sites and swimming beaches. Meet the rest of the group for an evening workshop before sharing dinner together at a simple local restaurant on the site of a taverna that was a favourite haunt of Charmian and George. In Mermaid Singing Clift calls it ‘Skeftarios’ (her hearing of ‘Xefteris’).

Gather after breakfast for reading and discussion of Mermaid Singing, and of some personal letters Clift wrote to her best friend. The focus is on how Charmian adapted to running a household in the primitive circumstances of 1950s Kalymnos. After a couple of months, how was her quest for a mermaid going? And how was she developing her writing voice? What can we learn from her methods? The group then travels by bus to a number of places that the author visited as she ventured beyond the town: the Crusader castle of Chrysocheria and the convent at Argos, in its secluded setting. We pass the Sanctuary of Apollo (dating to the tenth century BCE) as we travel on to the village of Panormos and the area of Brosta, site of the threshing floor described by Clift. There is lunch in a family-run taverna, before returning to the Villa Melina for time at leisure, followed by the regular evening workshop. Dinner is at leisure.

In the words of poet T.S. Eliot, with whom Charmian Clift once had afternoon tea, ‘the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time’. So in this morning’s workshop, share what you have learned about Charmian Clift and Kalymnos, and what you have discovered about yourself and your reading and writing processes. By the summer of 1955, Clift had finished Mermaid Singing, which she concludes with a description of a communal beach picnic. In the same spirit, the group will set off by minibus to the beach-side village of Vlychardía, Clift’s Piso, for a stroll or a swim and coffee or a drink at leisure. Returning to the Villa Melina, there is time for packing followed by a final evening workshop before you travel by minibus to a farewell dinner at a waterfront taverna on the west coast. Here, watch the sun set over Telendos, sometimes called ‘the Lady’ or ‘the Princess’ of Telendos. The mountain on this tiny island has a profile which in the evening light resembles a sleeping woman: a fine Kalymnian matriarch for us to finish with! Final night in Pothia.

Check out this morning and travel by taxi with your luggage to Pothia harbour. Here, a ferry takes the group to Mastichari, to meet a minibus for the short journey to Kos airport. We recommend booking an onwards flight from Kos in the afternoon; contact us to confirm. The program concludes on arrival at Kos airport.