The beauty of Olive Oil

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Yes, this is the time of year when olives are harvested – old ladies dressed in black sit like crows in the olive trees, raking the ripe olives off laden boughs with wooden combs onto nets spread below. Fires burn with fragrant olive wood logs, smoke curling up into the autumn air and warming unheated cottages.

Greece doesn’t sit with OPEC but as the producer of the world’s finest olive oil from its Cretan and Kalamata olive varieties, it certainly has some very expert oil sheiks producing both heavy crude and light sweet oil. With over 680 different kinds of olive tree, there are as many different kinds and grades of oil as there are wines. Someone somewhere is impressing someone by saying ” Ah, a languid little number from the sunny side of the tree….”

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How to watch the Marathon

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October 31st was the 28th anniversary of the Marathon to Athens race – As you all know of course, the original Marathon was the run by Pheidippides (530 BC–490 BC) of 240 km  in two days to get reinforcements for the Greek troops.  He then ran the 40 km (25 miles) from the battlefield near Marathon back to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the battle of Marathon with the word “Νενικήκαμεν” (Nenikékamen, “We have won”), then collapsed and died on the spot from exhaustion. Or, as Robert Browning put it more poetically,

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“No” Day – a national holiday

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Today is “Oxi Day”, or  “No” Day, or even  “**** off” Day.  At 4.00 a on the 28th October 1940, the Axis powers gave Greece an ultimatum – let our troops though or else… The Greek Prime Minister Metaxas, answered with one word. “No”. The next morning, the streets of Athens were filled with a joyous mass of people shouting “No, No, NO!” and ever since, No Day or “Oxi” Day, has been a national holiday with flags and processions, flowers and singing, and parades of soldiers in their fustanellasand bobble shoes.

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The Pure Greek Pirate Experience

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I spend a lot of time reassuring people that Greece is not infested with Somalian pirates, French barricades, pyromaniacs, typhoons, sinking ferries, murderous rioters, military dictators, drug cartels, white slave traders, exploding volcanoes and cancelled flights (I fib a little actually – one of those things on the list is not unknown to happen…)

Imagine my hollow laughter as Five Star Greece was turned down in its application to have a stand at the PURE Life Experiences travel fair in Morocco by the organisers, on the grounds that we represented seamless luxury and not enough adventure –

“But travelling to Greece IS an adventure, and staying in a luxurious villa with staff and pool and beach is just a particularly nice way to do that PURE Life Experience Greek island experience, and we can organise cooking weeks, walks, hikes, cruises, church trips, finger painting, yoga, scuba diving, archaeology tours, private views at the Benaki museum,  hell, with enough notice and an unlimited budget, we could probably even organise some pirates as well! Please give us a chance!”

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Corfu – Pomegranates and puddles

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Corfu
Sunday:
After the wild, bright barrenness of the Cyclades, Corfu is radiant with flowers and lush foliage, drooping boughs heavy with dark olives, thickets of tiny scented purple cyclamen, pink grapes bursting with juice, and pomegranates splitting open to show their ruby red glistening seeds. A pale blue mirror- like sea reflects the Albanian mountains back to Greece, seamed only by the odd autumn sailboat and a fisherman returning to harbour. From those perfectly reflected mountains also comes the faint boom boom familiar to those of us with teenage children – some Albanian Stringfellow has started a small and cheap disco that can be hear every day over in Corfu. The locals and bigwigs are incensed and have applied to have him shut down, but I think it will take a major pay-off myself, and in the meantime he is enjoying annoying everyone. What a clever way to make money from a lousy club –

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Sunday on Mykonos

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Mykonos

“Eureka!” as Archimedes would have said had he been a villa agent – At last, we have been given a drop-dead glamorous house with private access to the sea – mind you, you have to be a strong swimmer to cope with the waves, but on a calm day, total bliss, and the house has that elusive “it” factor that still gets us excited after all these years of looking at whitewashed Cycladic houses. Ask us about Mykonos VF. It has the curved infinity pool with the blue of the Aegean below, the huge entertaining spaces and lovely pool pavilion, and a grand piano.

We rewarded ourselves with a divine supper at Aqua, chef Daniele’s latest venture on the waterfront in Little Venice – subtle, simple, fresh and authentic flavours marrying the best of Italy and Greece, in a cosy and picturesque Myconian setting.

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Andros – A class act.

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October 6th

One of the closest Cycladic islands to Athens and just a hop away from Mykonos, Andros is ripe for discovery. Real estate prices are bucking the downward trend, fuelled by demand from the Greek island connoisseurs who prize the wonderful fresh and local produce, the rich and subtle cuisine, the tidy and picturesque villages, the stunning beaches of soft yellow sand, the lush valleys and fertile terraces dotted with whitewashed turreted pigeon-cotes, the gushing streams that water the island, the rustling trees, rich flora and fauna, the open, honest and charming islanders, and the absence of tacky tourism. That sentence is long enough….

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Odysseus’ Palace found!

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Finally, over a hundred years since Schliemann, convinced he had found the location of Odysseus and Penelope’s home, first excavated the site of Aetos on Ithaca, a team of architects from the University of Yannina have uncovered a three storey Mycenean building that corresponds to Homer’s famous description. Odysseus clearly valued panoramic views – either for strategic or … Read more