Today I got tired, and I think it has something to do with… Breakfast.
Left the hotel (a cheerful brownwood-floored and whitewashed block) at ten after an uninterrupted eight hours’ sleep, and fo the first time in weeks decided breakfast would be a Good Idea. There are three famous cafes on the Square in glorious Art Deco, the Athenios, Delices, and Trianon, and I’m determined to have a coffee at each one.
Some pastries and caffeine later, I search for the Graeco-Roman Museum. The map’s awful and when I find it – two hours later – I discover it’s been closed for renovating since Sep 2005. Deflating.
And as I walk back towards the seafront, I start feeling oddly tired, as if the accumulated sleep debt of the last few weeks has suddenly kicked in. Instead of walking around the harbour to Fort Qaitbey – built with stone salvaged from the old Lighthouse at Pharos – I cut back to my room and finish the last of my holiday reading, Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’, in a slight fatigued haze. It’s 5:30 before I’m ready to hit the streets again. But at least breakfast this morning has taught my body how to be hungry again.