Sao Paulo Travel Week

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We are samba-ing off to Sao Paulo next week for the very new and very exciting Travel Fair which is the focus for Latin American travel professionals. We aim to lure fun and sun-loving Latinos away from the Caribbean, (so many hurricanes in July and August,) away from the home beaches, (Sao Paulo is wet and cold,) and from the tropics further north, (the humidity is horrible for the hair), and show them a really good time in the Greek islands. We are, I think, the only European villa company exhibiting, and trust that our charm offensive will earn us lots of attention from everyone.

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Villa or Hotel?

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I am reproducing a very useful article here about why renting a villa is often preferable to a hotel, as it answers a lot of questions that we get from many people who have not previously thought of renting a villa:

Posted in Vacation Rentals | April 27th, 2009
A Villa offers so many advantages over a hotel, and below are the top 10 reasons why.
1. Price – For a large family or group of friends, a private Villa will work out significantly cheaper that a resort, especially when you consider  all the extra services that villas often provide.
2. Service – Many Villas come with private live-in staff and often a daily Villa Manager that speaks fluent English and can help you with renting cars, boat charters, and often have been with the house a long time.

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A Cretan said all Cretans are Lyres…

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You may know the ancient logic puzzle – A Cretan said “All Cretans are liars”, so as a Cretan he was lying, so all Cretans AREN’T liars, so then he was telling the truth, so all Cretans ARE liars, so therefore he was lying, so all Cretans AREN’T liars and so on till you get tired of it… (there is an emergency escape that you learn in 1st  year Logic classes if you ever had the privilege of studying  Philosophy, but years of real life have so eroded the brain cells that I can no longer remember it…)

Well, William Dalrymple, font of the most beautiful travel writing in the English language today, in spite of being in full possession of all brain cells, very sensibly ignored this kind of Cretan Liar, and went off to Crete on the track of a different kind of liar – the Cretan Lyre. We and a very generous owner, put him up in our very beautiful villa on the shores of the Gulf of Mirabello, from where he dragged his protesting wife and children away from the sybaritic delights of five star cuisine, private swimming platform and pool with cool drinks on the terrace, to trudge around in search of the Muse…

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Spetses & the Armata

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For fun, we showed you Spetses in winter, (see our facebook page) now back to business:

Expensive real estate. Jet-set summer playground. Yes, Spetses is all that. But if that is all you see, you are missing the whole point of this rather special island.

Spetses was home to a breed of enterprising and successful merchant captains in the 18th century, whose fortunes went into building graceful waterfront mansions and more ships.  It raised the Greek flag in rebellion against the Ottoman overlords 12 days before the official outbreak of the War of Independence. In April, together with neighboring Hydra, it declared its unilateral independence from Turkey. Its most famous child is the legendary Bouboulina – widow of two wealthy Spetsiot captains, (one after the other rather than at the same time..)

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The Joy of Quiet

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Happy New Year everyone.

Are you looking for a fresh start to 2012? Want a resolution that just feels right and ahead of the game? The top article in the New York Times yesterday is onto something that we Greek Islanders have known for ages, namely that a week with no telecommunications is one of life’s great luxuries and the secret to a quiet soul. Check out this article, and then call us to book a luxury villa on Koufonisia in the Lesser Cyclades, or Naxos, or Serifos……. how nice in these times of austerity  to be able to offer you the latest in lifestyle luxuries absolutely free of charge.

For the moment that is.

We in the maketing department are no slouches, let me tell you, and might soon be offering  Premium-rated  “Internet-free, blackberry-free Villa Weeks”,  that can be booked by the doctors, spouses and PA’s of over-worked, hyper-linked  executives.  Perhaps we can even do a deal with a private health insurance company – spend a week on a Greek island with lousy mobile reception and stuttering internet, with a pwer-failure thrown in, and get a reduction in your premium……we are open to ideas!

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Surfing in Greece?

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The last post of the year is rather an unusual one and the article below came as news to me… Once you have  got tired of Hawaii and California, bored of Australia’s Gold Coast, and sick of South Africa, where can a poor,  jaded surfer go to get his mojo back?

The New York Times has the answer –  click to read the article.

I can certainly believe the refreshing lack of surfing infrastructure and inspiring sense of going off the beaten wave, so to speak. Ripped young surf gods on the beaches of the Ionian, and bleached blonde surfer chicks on the shores of the Cyclades can only be a good thing, and very much to be encouraged.

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Zorba the Bureaucrat

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I am reading John Lucas book “92 Acharnon Street – A Year in Athens”, written about a year that the author spent in Athens in the 1980’s. While he responds sensitively to the Greek landscape, smells, sounds and tastes, and writes beautifully, he suffers from the “Zorba Disease” – Outbreaks of this were first noticed in the South of France, where the chief bacteria-spreader was Peter Mayle – who set off a virulent strain called “A Year in Provence”.

Symptoms are:
Over-straining to perceive the big-hearted nobility of the Greek Soul.
Inability to distinguish reality from imagination.
Delusion that in every Greek there lurks a poet, humorist, artist and philosopher.

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