An invitation dropped into my mailbox to visit the famous confectioner’s Kardiasmenou on Spetses for Greek coffee and pastries. A picture of their speciality almond cookies, “Amygdalota” was on it. Like a Proustian madeleine, a slow, sweet, torrent of memories starts flooding in – No Greek would ever turn up to dinner, tea or any social … Read More
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The new Greek Tourist Office campaign features pictures of hooded thugs torching buildings, charging riot police, and piles of bodies, with the legend, “Visit Greece and escape from the troubles of violent, hot-blooded, unstable Northern Europe. Not really, but it easily could…
The journalist from CBS who produced the Sixty Minutes programme about Mount Athos a couple of months ago (see our earlier blog) travelled back there to deepen his rapport with the monasteries he had visited, and kindly took my two sons with him, who were soon dubbed Agents of the Devil by the monks – … Read More
Honestly, how could one ever leave the important business of locating Odysseus’ palace to archaeologists? With this report, I would like to introduce you to the new discipline of Psycho-archaeology. I escorted a group of friends and relatives up to the new found site of Odysseus’ palace on the side of the northern part of Ithaca, … Read More
Five Star Greece makes it home to Ithaca after many adventures with lotus eaters, sirens, dragons and Cyclops. Sitting on the small dock at home in Villa Skinos, feet dangling in the water, a plate of sea urchins and a glass of ouzo shared with Captain Tasso and Artemis, and a huge shooting star like … Read More
Patrick Leigh Fermor died on June 10th – author of three of my favorite books – A Time of Gifts, describing his journey on foot as a young man from London to Istanbul, though the book stops at the Hungarian border – Roumeli; an exploration through travels in Northern Greece of the sense of Greekness … Read More
May 30th Much as I hate turning down helicopter rides, I was a day too late to get a lift to Sifnos with the owner, and ended up on the Aghios Georgios which takes 5 hours from Piraeus, but is delightful – go “Distinguished Class” and you get a private deck with deckchairs and a white piano in the … Read More
May 30th If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that two grouse strolled along my terrace this morning and had a drink from the pool. Still unseasonably cold, but I saw a couple of houses that we are going to take on – one in Lia, a lovely little gem tucked away above … Read More
May 28th Morning visit to a wonderfully professionally run house, great staff, dedicated concierge, terrific cook, 6 bedrooms, and lovely views. Lunch at O’Bata – excellent octopus braised in wine – with a local partner, during which we chatted about which owners were stealing clients, which owners were undercutting the agents, which agents were undercutting … Read More
May 27th Mykonos Breakfast at La Luna on Lia beach, forgot my wallet but the chill factor there is such that the manager just said to me “We are all human darling, pay me when you can”. A cheerful day rattling around a still rainy Mykonos with Roi, our Mykonos colleague. She is thin, drives like … Read More
May 25th – A quiet ride on the small, empty, relaxed island hopper to Amorgos, an island very close to my heart for its wild, broad shouldered, mountainous beauty, hair-raisingly lovely cliff-girt coast, the amazing Hozoviotissa monastery pasted like a white swallows nest into a cleft in the crags, with foaming peacock-coloured sea below, its open-hearted … Read More