A quick flight back to Athens and then out to Kythira saw us in an entirely different environment from the past 10 days as here we were to stay in a friends house in a tiny village with no shops or restaurants. We did however have a rental car and a lovely couple George and Stella to show us around. A long time acquaintance of the MOTH had always said if you go to Greece make sure you come to Kythira and when we told him we were coming he pulled out all the stops to show us a good time in his place of birth. We were treated like royalty and George and Stella came every morning and showed us a different part of the island and then took us to lunch. We met the chefs, had tours of their kitchens and were treated to food that they love to eat themselves. We met so many people and they were all so generous – one guy paid for all the wine we had ordered at lunch just because we had come from Australia! George and Stella had lived in Sydney for 10 years in the 90s and spoke good English and were the best tour guides, taking us anywhere they thought was worthy of interest. They owned and ran a beautiful bakery in a nearby village and seemed to know EVERYONE on the island. The amount of times George would stop in the middle of the road, roll down the window of the car and shout out to someone in the garden or toot the horn to get them to come outside for a chat! Parking was pretty much wherever you wanted to stop and no one seemed to care in the slightest.

We visited two different monasteries that were really beautiful. A remote and peaceful location for both and the amazing interiors you expect from the Greek Orthodox Church. There are simple rooms available for rent where people come to retreat and meditate on life for a week or two – even up to a month. The church here still seems to play a big part in people’s lives and the priest is very much a part of the community. One offered us a Greek coffee, Turkish delight and vodka when we visited his church – a common occurrence apparently. He later joined us for lunch and was a really interesting guy who had spent 14 years in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands doing ministry work.

We had trips to beautiful Kapsali and Avlemenos as well as the main town of Chora which is on a hill dominated by the old Venetian castle built in 1503 offering us a panoramic view of Kapsali down below. A delicious lunch was had there in a taverna adjoining the most azure ocean and the MOTH said he would happily come back and rent a house there for a week or two one day! We saw fishermen patiently mending their nets, goats ran wild – their bells alerting us to their presence, the sun shone and the water lapped. Heaven indeed.

Our friends house had a beautiful view over the countryside and we would start and end the day admiring it from their veranda. A walk from the house takes you through the prickly pears, the wild horta and thyme bushes and through citrus and olive groves. It is much more green and lush than the other islands we had visited and less windy. The beaches were lovely and mostly empty in October. Cam had the entire Melidoni beach to himself as he did his morning laps whereas in summer it is packed with families from morning to night and the winding road full of traffic. We found the whole place very peaceful and meditative and as we had a big lunch every day we didn’t need any dinner – we had some nuts and fruit if we were peckish and used our time there to get organised for our trip to France (where we were staying in hotels with limited laundry facilities) and without TV we read our books and really relaxed.

As we packed our bags to return to Athens we were so grateful to have had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in an authentically Greek island and to have had the company of George and Stella to show us around and of course our friend Peter who made it all possible. Kythira has a special magic that has nothing to do with beach bars and cruise ships and I’m so happy we finally made it there after listening to so many stories about it over the years – it didn’t disappoint!