Our bumpy Road To the Stone House

            

Covid had paralyzed the world including our flight to Greece.

 Plane reservations  were canceled  then rescheduled four times, countless hours spent  on hold, hours, hours of frustrating  phone calls , then finally obtaining  special  permission  from Greek embassy  to travel to Greece. 

 

By  some small miracle we were able to travel on June 29th before Greece was to close its borders to the USA. 

We arrived in Athens Greece June 30th, our entire plane was led to a Covid testing  site, where we supplied Athens police with our travel itinerary,  our throats swabbed our throats.

 We were instructed to self  isolate for 24 hours in our hotel room, after 24 hours if our tests were  negative we were allowed to leave  the hotel to continue on our journey. 

Finally we arrive  "Ikaria "where our  journey  to find  property begins.   

This is our story. 

            Friends who are locals, help us  on our quest.  They tell us the best way to find property  on the Island,  first we must  put out feelers, at every coffee shop, gas station, bakery, butcher shop, restaurant's, friends of friends, Kafeneios.

Let them know that we are in search of a property for sale.

Making a Game plan

 Word of mouth travel's at lightning warp speed on the Island. We begin to get some nibbles, but nothing solid yet. To cover all our bases, we went the conventional route as well, by contacting the only real estate agent on the Island. 

We followed up every lead, left no stone unturned. 

Eureka, our hard work pays off, we found a house from a local who lives in Pigi village. It was a house with olive, walnut, lemon trees, nice views. Property needed quite a bit of work, as no one had lived there for some 20 years, but we felt up to the task. 

  After some detective work, heard the owner had died left property to his daughters, who lives in Athens. Our friend  Paschale who is a local as well as our best friend here, contacted one of the daughters who had inherited  the property.  She said we have  changed our minds  about selling. Paschale shrugs  his  shoulders , explains that Greeks don't like to sell their properties, to them it's like selling a piece of their soul, it happens often that they  will  change  their  minds about selling

Networking in Coffee shops

This  same scenario had happened  to us once already.  Before we had left States,  Paschale had called said there was a piece of land with a house in an  area we wanted to buy, at a good price, he would go look at it, let us know. When he finally called us back , not good news, there were several family members on the deed, they couldn't come to an agreement whether to sell or not. Another stone wall. 

Another stone wall

 

 

                   Maybe we would have better luck  with real estate  agent. We contacted an agent, she showed us several  listings but we only found one we liked, with amazing  sea & mountain views.  

We were  interested , the real estate agent would arrange a meeting with owners who were coming that weekend, from Athens . We phoned the agent to confirm our meeting, we couldnt believe our ears. Even though it was listed with an agent,  brother had decided he didn't  want to sell after all! 

We are finding  out very quickly,  

that this is not going to be easy .

After looking  at several properties,  running into many dead ends, we hear of a property for sale  in the village of Frantato, Paschale knows the seller, Periklis, he says he has no siblings, children, or partner. All good signs!

   My husband  along with Paschale jump in the car wasting no time . Anything that is worthwhile is snapped up quickly, usually  by another local. My husband returns an hour later breathless come on get in car 🚗 . You have to see this one.

I think you will love it! 

Not wanting to get disappointed, again, I tried not to get my hopes up. We drive up past vineyards,small churches, into the mountains to a pretty property  located in a small village of Frantato. 

 A stone  house that  has sat for over 100 years , with incredible  mountain, seaviews stares back at me.  We look at each other, this is it, this is what we have been searching  for, I can feel it in my bones. I can't tell you why, but this felt different from all the other properties, it felt like it was meant to be ours from very start. Periklis , the owner  was  called that very same day. We put a deposit down.

Neglected Stone house

Goats 🐐  have been 
Living here

Leap of faith into the blue zone

Seed had been planted

 When we first stepped foot onto Island of Ikaria, we were told that there are two kinds of people who came to this wild Island. First type, they get off the ferry, take one look, turn around get back . Tall mountains, narrow winding roads have been a deterrent to travelers for many years. 

Then there are those who never want to leave magical mysterious place.We of course, the latter. We fell in love with the Island, people, hospitality, food, wine, their turquoise waters.

Ferry to Ikaria

 Very first year we arrived in 2015, we started  dreaming of owning/ renovating a small Stone house, but it was only a dream. We looked at many properties that were for sale, but at that time too many obstacles were in our way. But a seed had been planted.

Dreams do come true

In fact there were several barriers. I only knew a few words of Greek language, even though my husband spoke it fluently, he being born raised in Greece. We rarely spoke it at home in America. On this Island very few speak English. It would be a huge issue for me. 

Beauracacy  is incredibly challenging here in Greece, we weren't sure we could even navigate their system. 

Owning a house in United states we couldnt afford to  juggle two properties. 

Number #1 reason, we would be far away from family, friends, our homeland. We returned to the States, put our dream to bed.

 Years went by, lots of discussions of what would be our next chapter. We decided to set our dream into motion. One of  most difficult things we had to do, besides leaving family, friends. Was after eighteen wonderful years, full of amazing memories,with some reluctance, we put a For Sale sign in front of our beloved beach house. 

 

Beach house for Sale

We put beach house up for sale and waited, it didn't sell the first year.  We took it off the market, waited 6 months, put it back on, it sold that week. Now for the first time since I was in my early twenties I didn't own a home, let me tell you it was a little unnerving, but it also felt very freeing.

SOLD

 My  husband and I began to get cold feet, we started thinking, maybe we should look into buying in Florida, it had warm climate, beaches we wanted. Plus we would be closer to home, family, friends. 

Johns Pass Florida 

We decided to rent in Florida to see how we felt there. We looked at many houses, towns, but we just couldn't pull trigger. No matter where we searched, at end of day we would look at each other say "Its not Ikaria "

Ikaria Calling to us

Fast forward 2020.  House is Sold, I am taking Greek lessons online. We have rented a apartment on Ikaria, while we search for properties. When we find the property of our dreams, we'll add a studio apartment for family, friends. Finally, we intend to travel home for yearly visits to alleviate home sickness. We are ready to take on Greek bureaucracy.

 To start our quest,our plane reservations have been made.

Unexpectedly, Corona Virus appears on our radar, caused a tsunamis of events worldwide. Including major travel issues, our ✈  flight's were cancelled several times, after alot of phone calls, red tape, bumpy start, help from Greek consulate in Boston, we are on our way.

Greece here we come 💙 

Pull up a chair at our Greek table,

Let us share Ikarian stories with you. This being one of most told.

One story told to us, was of a Ikarian man named Stamatis who lived in the fishing village Karkinargi,  On Island of Ikaria. Times were rough! There was little opportunity to make money, so many Ikarians moved to  America . Stamatis was one of them, he  stayed in America till he was in his 60's,  sadly he was diagnosed  with lung cancer,  he visited 9 different  Doctors who all  told him the same thing, to get his affairs in order. Stamatis decided to go back to  his beloved Island of Ikaria to wait to die. 

Back in his village he resumed lifestyle of Ikarian way .  Slowly something was happening to him, he began to feel stronger, more energetic, he planted his garden, tended  to his olives, grapes, drank the local wines, cooked with the wild herbs &  drank mountain tea's, socialized at the kafenios,  danced to wee hours at the Panigeri's.

Many years had passed he decided, he must go back to America to share  with Doctors what  had happened  to him.  To his surprise he was unable to find  any of his doctors.

"they had all died"

Stamatis returned home to Ikaria lived to a ripe old age 103.

Story recounted  by
Georgiana  Nikolopoulou

Welcome to our Table
Where storys are Told

Local grapes

Tea wild Herbs
Medicinal Honey

Wines from Ikarian  vineyards 

Kali orexi

It all begins with fresh ingredients  two Greek chefs,  a stone oven, good local  wine a cozy spot on a  terrace a big wooden table and the most important ingredient good friends !

Georgiana Farm house Akamatra

The farmhouse  home away from home for the next three months  is a traditional  stone house over 100 years old totally renovated  by Georgiana, a pint sized
50 something  women  who is quite simply  stated is an amazingly talented  do it your selfer who  lovingly renovated the stone house from a barn to what you see today.The photos speak for themselves .

Return to IKARIA

As the hellenic seaways ferry arrives Into the port of Evidilos at 11pm we can see the twinkling lights from above,
my husband Teddy and myself wonder has it changed from 3 years ago? Has it lost its charm due to the popularity of the blue zones? If you like join us in our journey to find out!

Evidilos

Evidilos Ikaria is a small port in Agean sea on the North side of Island, it is there where we go to the same Cafe every day for Elinko cafe ( Greek coffee) the cafe is owned by Evaglios a robust happy women
who  knows the  rhythm of the island and the people . We were  surprised  that after 3 years she remembered  us and our names and genuinely  seemed happy to see us. Come sit with me tell me where have you been?