A Taste of Greece

As a family we enjoy visiting the Ionian islands for so many reasons… their hidden beaches, the glorious weather and the friendly people but one thing we most definitely love is the FOOD!! During the Winter months we spend most of our time in the office based in the UK. In January we start dreaming of our Spring and Summer travels around the islands. There is always talk of “oh I can’t wait for fresh Calamari” or “let’s make sure we find that Greek wine again”.

Thoughts of enjoying a waterfront meal on a balmy Greek Summer evening – whilst only half way through a grey British Winter, we decided it might be fun to have a Greek foodie evening and recreate some of our favourites!

So, armed with our Greek recipe books and the internet (plus a few secrets gathered over the years from Greek friends) we started preparations.

Starters were my domain, I made baked feta wrapped in Filo pastry with sesame seeds and honey, this is my absolute favourite dish and was very simple to make.

Alex gave me a hand in the kitchen frying courgettes and making Tzatziki while I attempted to make his favourite Yigandes (Greek baked beans). With the table set and a few Greek Rebetika favourites playing, we started to feel like we were back home on Paxos.

Viv and Dave arrived with the main course – a roasted chicken dish with lemon and potatoes (Kotopoulo Lemonato). Dessert, an Athenian baked cheesecake, was made by Auntie Lizzie.

Greek wines were ordered from Maltby & Greek, a London based supplier of a wide range of Greek food and drink. Our favourite was a ‘Malagouzia’ from the Mylonas Winery: light with fresh fruit notes. We would also recommend the dessert wine – another from the Mylonas winery: ‘Sunday, Savatiano-Aidani’ – a very pleasant, delicate dessert wine which was far too easy to drink!!

It was a great evening filled with lots of laughter and yummy food…hopefully it will suppress our longing for Greek food and balmy waterfront evenings until the Spring.

Catherine x

February 21, 2019

Escaping to Ithaca Needn’t Be an Odyssey

After the Trojan War it took Odysseus 10 eventful years to return to his Ithaca home.

Reaching the end of his journey, Odysseus was taken from Kefalonia to Ithaca in a Phaeacian longboat. Seeing the Phaeacians returning to Kefalonia, Poseidon raised his trident and turned the boat and oarsmen to stone.

Tzika House and the Sunset Cottages look down to an outcrop of rock emerging from the sea in the distinct shape of a Phaeacian longboat.

It is said that the Phaeacians dropped Odysseus off at the beach below Dexa Beach House and Villa Areti. The photo below was taken by the owner of Areti – the rainbow falls onto the beach.

Nowadays Odysseus could fly to Kefalonia, then a 40 minute taxi journey to the port of Sami with a private speedboat to whisk him over to Ithaca in 30 minutes. All arranged by our Ithaca manager, Sue.

And to regain his strength before slaughtering Penelope’s suitors he could hide himself away in comfort at Hilltop House.

January 31, 2019

Carnival Season

Carnival season in Greece (“Apokries”) starts 3 weeks before Easter.

Fancy dress processions through the streets, dancing groups and music bands. Bystanders throw confetti, streamers and sometimes firecrackers.

Vathy Carnival Procession

Clean Monday (“Katheri Leftera”) marks the beginning of Lent when meat, dairy and eggs are avoided by those who observe it.

If the sun shines on Clean Monday, families picnic outside with “lagana” (an unleavened flat bread), taramosalata, shellfish and salads, followed by sticky deserts. The skies are filled with colourful kites – another part of tradition

Our Clean Monday feast on Palikastritsa beach

March 14, 2017

Winter Weather on Ithaca

This Blog was written by our Ionian Villas manager on Ithaca, Sue White.

Sue lived on Kefalonia for 18 years and has now been living on Ithaca for 5 years.

Sue is a taxi driver on Ithaca – one of twelve drivers.

Sue looks after our clients and is able to give a valuable, personal insight into the history, culture and lifestyles of Ithaca.

Sue has her own website: Ithaca Travel Services

“A lot of people who visit Greece in the summer are under the impression that there is wall to wall sunshine year-round. In my taxi, apart from being asked the usual list of questions as to how I ended up being an English lady taxi driver on a small Greek island, the conversation then switches to ‘the weather’.

It’s not only tourists who have an interest in the weather. The locals here on Ithaca also have a very healthy interest on the subject, and of course they are all experts! From fishermen, shepherds and even the all-knowing γιαγιαδες (grand matriachs), I hear conflicting predictions about the weather but this last summer they all seemed to agree with each other. In August temperatures of 40 Degrees the talk was of a ‘βαρύ Χειμώνας’ (a heavy winter) – and they were right.

After a reasonably mild November and December, the New Year kicked off with freezing cold temperatures and snow, swiftly followed by days of torrential rain. For the first time in 10 years the snow settled all over the island – not just the mountain villages but also on the beaches!

When the snow was washed away by days of relentless rain, the mountain streams flowed down the valleys to resemble a Lake District landscape (apart from the olive trees!). Ithaca, an island rich in pasture land and olive groves, is now super lush and green.

One of the effects of the snow, say the fishermen, shepherds and γιαγιαδες, is that invasive bugs have been frozen and they are now predicting a good olive harvest next October.”

February 3, 2017

Fiscardo Before the Sun Umbrella Invasion

Fiscardo is undoubtedly one of the most colourful and prettiest ports in the Ionian.

In 1953 an earthquake destroyed all Kefalonia buildings except those in Fiscardo and a few outlying villages.

In my early Greek Islands Club days we took on a small programme of village houses for those visitors wanting to spend lazy days people and boat watching on Fiscardo waterfront.

In the early 1980’s a coffee on Fiscardo waterfront would have cost around 25 cents in today’s money.

Many of the Greek islands still hold on to a simple lifestyle and do not let the demands of blinkered tourism dictate their future. But whereas an older island generation may not want change, the younger generation will naturally be aspirational: the BMW versus the donkey.

Running a travel business often leads one to hypocrisy. I always tried to offer holiday opportunities to those wanting to escape the crowds and to get to know and be part of a simple Greek island community. In 1990 the BBC Holiday Programme asked me if we would host a film crew in Fiscardo. I said yes. Holiday bookings to Fiscardo soared the following year and Fiscardo started to take on a more chic appearance.

A coffee on Fiscardo waterfront can now cost 4 Euros.

The following photos were taken in 1990 when my mum (Buz), my wife (Vivienne) and I introduced Lorraine Chase (as the Presenter), a BBC researcher plus a cameraman and sound man to the beautiful landscapes of northern Kefalonia and Fiscardo.

You will see that there were only a very few café bar tables and chairs and wooden fishing boats outnumbered fibreglass cruisers. There were also no waterfront sun umbrellas. Today’s waterfront wall of sun umbrellas provide welcoming shade but I still prefer the openness that existed pre-invasion and also the look of traditional, rickety cafenion chairs and chipped metal tables.

But life goes on and Fiscardo will still dazzle and delight.

Lorraine Chase in Fiscardo — Selfie with Lorraine!

Fiscardo waterfront Lorraine Chase — Lorraine & my mum!

May 16, 2016

Greece to Continue to rely on Tourism In or Out of the EU

Whether Greece stays in the Euro and/or the European Community or not, she will continue to depend on tourism as one of her most important income opportunities.

Thousands of visitors each year to the smaller Greek islands have a serious impact on local infrastructures. Over time these islands will inevitably lose part of their culture, traditions, lifestyle, character, identity and soul.

Once this has happened it will be hard to recover what has been lost.

On the tiny island of Paxos, a new initiative has been set up by Faye Lychnou and Christos Boicos to initiate, encourage and organise cultural activities of every type on the island to include concerts and festivals, art exhibitions, art residencies and workshops to involve people and culture from Paxos and from outside.

This initiative is called Friends of Paxos. Faye and Christos understand the fragility of Paxos’ heritage and its environment and are keen to encourage projects concerning the island’s preservation.

At a time when public budgets and cultural initiatives in Greece are few, Friends of Paxos will look to private financing of its projects.

Ionian Villas wants to become a Friend of Paxos and once the projects become more concrete, we will announce them on this blog in the hope that we can encourage others to become a Friend.

August 25, 2015

The New Loggos Bakery

This photo of Paxos was taken in the mid 1970’s (I think) – you will notice:

Loukas’ new bakery shop being completed. The bread oven is still behind the village church. Next door is the Dipli Akti cafenion – now the Roxy Bar. In those days all the waterfront tables and chairs wobbled on uneven surfaces and there was a refreshing lack of gingham tablecloths and bespoke sun umbrellas.

The mayor of Loggos kept his scooters for hire next door to the Dipli Akti and this became the Taxidi Bar.

A lack of plastic/fibreglass boats in the harbour. When my family owned Greek Islands Club we commissioned the one and only boat builder on Paxos (Mimis Mastoras) to build 14 boats. It took him around 6 months to build one boat. The blue & white boat “SPIANTZI” in the foreground is one of the boats Mimis built. Each of these boats had a Seagull engine and all boats were regularly rented out to Greek Islands Club clients. The journey from Gaios to Loggos would take around 45 minutes on a good sea but in those days everything went more slowly.

To the left of the wooden boat are two children: Panagiotis Mastoras and his sister – their father is Yannis, pictured in a previous blog with his prized lobster.

Nowadays in Loggos harbour plastic boats outnumber wooden boats; more of the waterfront is taken up by cushioned café bar chairs and the espresso has overtaken the Greek coffee but Loggos is still a beautiful, friendly, laid-back, unique and special place.

February 14, 2014

Paxos in the 1970’s

Photo – Tzekos Supermarket 1970’s

My father first came to the little island of Paxos in the early 1960’s – sailing around the Ionian islands with my mother and two friends. They only spent a few days on the island but my father was taken with the friendliness of the islanders, the simple lifestyle (no electricity and no cars in those days) and the island’s unspoilt, natural beauty.

Soon after this he left the BBC and started a package holiday company called Greek Islands Club, intended as a means to spend time on Paxos.

In the 1960’s visitors to Paxos could stay at the few simple rooms of the San Giorgio Hotel in Gaios, three rooms in the Gaios house of beautiful Eleni and the Paxos Beach Hotel, which had only just stopped being a Club Med cluster of straw huts.

With the help of Panagiotis Protogeros, my father persuaded the owners of five very old and very unlived-in houses, close to the Gaios waterfront, to lease them to Greek Islands Club for five years. Panagiotis was the only plumber on the island – he installed bathrooms inside the houses (a revolutionary move for Paxos). My father, mother and I brought out furniture and fabrics from England (many Land Rover journeys) to prepare the houses for holidaymakers wanting an out of the ordinary escape from Med resorts.

By the early 1970’s our Greek Islands Club Paxos programme had grown to 20 houses. No pools, no pretentious trappings and a lot of hard work, not made easy by the dictating military junta.

Aged 18, I looked after our Paxos programme while my father and mother ran the London office above a Wimpy Bar on The Strand. I have many fond memories of Paxos in the 1970’s – some of these memories I captured on film but sadly a suitcase containing all my Paxos photographs disappeared on a flight back to England.

A friend, Laurie Collard, was a frequent visitor to Paxos in the 1970’s and he took many photos of the island and the islanders. Some of his photos have been made into prints and were exhibited at the Loggos gallery (the old customs house next door to Taxithi Bar) a few years ago. I hold the originals and will put them up on our Facebook page over the next few months, for those who are interested in a glimpse into a 1970’s Paxos.

The photo reproduced in this blog shows Nicos Kangas (Tzekos) outside his Loggos shop. Nicos was our Loggos “agent” and worked tirelessly to make sure that every visitor to his island was treated and looked after as a friend. In the doorway is Spiros Mastoras, who ran a hardware store which is now the kitchen for Stelios’ Aste Doue tavern. They are both very much alive and in good spirits.

February 5, 2014

Olive Pruning on the Ionian Islands

Have you ever wondered why some olive trees are regularly pruned whilst others are not. There appears to be a different culture of olive cultivation from island to island, region to region and country to country.

Does the pruning affect the quality of oil?

Stanley Stewart wrote in Times Live the following piece about Paxos olives:

“I walked between tiny hamlets in the interior, through olive groves, steeped in sun-flecked shadow, threaded by dry stone walls, and silent but for the rising drone of cicadas. Olives are the key to the Paxiot character. Olives have meant that, for centuries, no one had to do very much.

It was all down to the Venetians who ruled the island for 400 years until the Napoleonic wars. The Venetians had created an inflated market for olive oil by persuading the women of North Africa that nothing would make them so beautiful as bathing in the stuff. To take advantage of this market, they tried to persuade the Paxiots to plant olive trees. When persuasion didn’t work they offered them one drachma, the equivalent of about £75 in today’s money, for each tree. The islanders promptly planted a quarter of a million.

They have been living off this burst of industry ever since.

“In the old days, if you had 300 trees,” a man told me over coffee one morning in Gaios, “you didn’t need to work. Now the price of olive oil has fallen, people need jobs. They call it progress.”

If olive trees were cathedrals, the Paxos trees would be Notre Dame – elaborate, vast, gnarled, very ancient, and heavily buttressed. They sprawl fantastically. Apparently their owners only bother with pruning every other decade at most.

Paxos’s approach to the whole olive business is not so much laid back as completely horizontal. In most parts of the world, olive harvests usually take six to eight weeks. In Paxos, they can take seven months. The islanders don’t pick olives. They spread nets and wait for them to drop, venturing out now and again to collect the windfall and send them off to press. It is an admirable approach.”

Not sure about the drachma for each tree planted – I think it was a Venetian ducato (ducat).

The Paxos olive trees, up till about 20 years ago, used to yield a crop of olives every other year. This was abruptly changed when it was decided (against the wishes of the Paxiots) to spray the entire island to eradicate an olive blight. The Paxiots say that the present annual harvest is not as good as in the years when it was every two years.

I’m not an olive oil connoisseur but the Paxos olive oil looks good, tastes good & by golly ….

September 21, 2013

A taste of the Ionian islands

I was once managing director of Greek Islands Club. When we had offices in Old Isleworth it meant a 2 hour drive from home in West Sussex and then a 2 hour drive back home. The M25 was my companion and pacemaker. I now look after Ionian Villas from our home in a little Dorset village and occasionally tune in to radio traffic reports to see how my companion of old is faring. Not too well by all accounts.

My wife and I travel round the Ionian islands for 3 weeks in April/May and 3 weeks in September/October. Refreshing perks of the job but also very important to give knowledgeable advice to prospective clients and to retain good personal links with all our property owners. A plate of grilled octopus by the sea beats the M25 snarl-up any day.

This May we spent Greek Easter on Paxos and then took the hydrofoil to Corfu and then a SkyExpress prop plane to Kefalonia – the ubiquitous grilled octopus at Sami port and then a 30-minute ferry to Ithaca, where we stayed at Dexa Beach House just a few steps away from the beach.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Dexa Beach – early morning

Ithaca hasn’t been tamed or compromised by tourism – it has a beautiful wild side, hidden hamlets, inquisitive locals – many with a lingering Australian or South African twang (many fled Ithaca during the civil war after the 2nd World War), a welcoming lack of coastal development and stunning views from mountain top monasteries.

Back to Kefalonia where we stayed at the superb Avra Suites – above sandy Makris Yalos beach. 5 Star accommodation with only the sound of the sea and the occasional sea bird. Memorable breakfasts procured from the owner’s garden of fruit trees, strawberry patch, vegetable garden and the magic touch of Eleni the creative chef.

Then another Sky Express plane hop of 15 minutes to Lefkas (via Preveza airport) where we stayed at Villa Yasmina – above the west coast with our own theatre of an orchestra pit of silver olives, a stage of Ionian sea and a backdrop of oooo – arrrrr sunsets.

On Lefkas’ east coast port of Nidri a ferry takes 25 minutes, passing Skorpios and other small islands, to reach the tiny island of Meganissi. We stayed at Villa Arenaria – a few paces away from a secluded beach. Vasco, the ever-smiling owner, is half Greek and half Florentine.

Sky Express then took us to Corfu where we met up with Jan Manessi, who owns The Manor House– possibly the most beautiful house in the Ionian.

June 14, 2013

Category: Island Life