Mykonos is getting ready for its summer-long party – the guests are already arriving, and the party will go on till early September. All eyes however are on Scorpios, named after the island of Onassis and a slick reference to last year’s star bar – Jackie O. Scorpion is the brainchild of Thomas and Mario, … Read more
We are thrilled to introduce a new island to our portfolio of destinations with lovely villas – and Kythnos is a particularly low-key and charming island, with very few villas and not much to do. Just what we like. In fact, the glamorous Athenian owner of our new villa shook her head in wonderment during … Read more
Did you know that the origin of the Christmas tree in ancient Greece, was not fir or cypress tree, but a branch from a wild olive tree? According to many references in ancient texts, the wild olive branch, or “Eiresioni”, was decorated with garlands of red and white wool. On it hung the first autumn … Read more
The seven islands that make up the Ionian Islands are about soft seduction; they don’t go in for brash, bright, harsh, wind-blown, barren, dynamic or other such theatricals – Corfu, Paxos, Lefkada, Ithaca, Kefalonia, Zakynthos and Kythira have always been a country apart – the Venetians owned them, as did Napoleon and then the Russian … Read more
Tiny Skiathos is a sparkling pendant drop off the damp nose of the Pelion peninsular, and is a perfect, sandy playground for families and youngsters. The south coast is lined with an almost continuous strip of golden sand kissed by calm, shallow, pale blue water, and fronted by hotels, tavernas, some private villas and excellent beach lounges with cool furniture and chilled music on Banana Beach or Koukounaries that heats up as the evening gets going.
Back from Marrakech, where the utterly fabulous 2104 edition of PURE Life Experiences, the best travel show in the world, is over; we all remember the fireworks, the parties, the Berber horsemen, but of course, the real excitement is meeting the stars from the travel world; the amazing new travel agents and trip designers that come from all over the globe – China, the Gulf, Latin America, Canada, the US and of course Europe. This year was special – for the first time, PURE invited the world’s leading travel press stars to attend and make appointments with us – we were honoured to have the editors in chief of Travel and Leisure, Town and Country, Porter, How to Spend it, and Condé Nast Traveler amongst others visit us – and getting editors to keep appointments is like herding cats….
A rather late posting, but better late than never….
Skopelos is home to an eclectic group of people who go a bit native there – documentary film makers, artists, the designer Marc Held, and Martin Beckett, a giant in the world of advertising photography and president of the Association of Photographers. Martin is wearing a white(-ish) wife-beater and shorts, his grey curls hang down, and an olive green sweater matches his olive green eyes. Between advertising campaigns, he builds houses for people, to stop others doing them badly. Next week he is off to address the European parliament on artist’s rights.
Part 1
Skopelos, the largest of the Sporades islands, is one of Greece’s most overlooked islands in spite of Mamma Mia being filmed there… pristine green pine forests with plane and sycamore trees give way closer to the sea to Mediterranean herbs, with fine beaches under towering cliffs, sandy crescents backed by pines, and some rather scrubby villages. Only a 45 minute water taxi or seajet ride from Skiathos town, but a world away. The Sporades are famous for their fragrant pine cloaked mountains and soft sandy beaches –
Milos is different, and I really can’t believe that it has taken me so long to discover it. I am so thankful we have a house there to show you, and I am desperately looking for another one as we want to share this lovely island with you. I have one in my sights that I spied from afar, and when we set our sights on something, we usually get it, it is just a matter of time….
The house we have is a modern masterpiece, peering over a cliff with a private beach below and its own olive grove behind.
Famous for the Venus of Milos and its beautiful beaches, Milos has so much more to offer – You would have to be colour blind to not enjoy Milos – a volcanic explosion created this curly heap of cliffs and caves striated and layered like an intricate pastry, dazzling white, sulphurous yellow, blood-red manganese, copper green, obsidian, alabaster and goodness knows what else. The beaches are an extravagant variation on this theme, ranging from copper coloured sand to tiny jewel-like pebbles of elegant appearance and varied colours, with the sea that changes colour depending on what shores it is lapping
Women, as all Greek men know, cannot drive. When they therefore have to reverse onto the little ferry deck of the Paros-Antiparos ferry, the shortest ride in Greece, and the one that affords the deepest insights into the gender war, any good Greek sailor knows he has to shout “Left, left, LEFT, right RICHT RIGHTRIGHTRIGHTISAID, now left LEFT LEFT LEFTLEFTRIGHT, STOOOPPPPPPP while grabbing the steering wheel and pushing the car at the same time. This causes all women to lose faith in their ability to drive/think/hold a steering wheel, look out of a rear view mirror, and function in general, so that they start hyperventilating, tremble, reverse into the water melon van behind them, and eventually burst into tears and flee the car, leaving all good Greek sailors to sigh in resignation at the fact that women cannot drive.