At the small entrance of Knossos labyrinth, Ariadne gave Theseus the famous ball of thread that would allow him not to get lost once inside the maze. When Theseus met the Minotaur, he fought it and killed it with his sword. I thought I would need a magic and loving thread to progress through Nelly’s majestic Greek garden, a precise labyrinth of sun-ripened lemon trees (“lemonies” in Greek) and innumerable flower and fruit trees from which one could pick any possible delicious fruit. Our small independent cottage faces the swimming pool and is called “The Piggies”, since once it was the house of proper piggies. The estate is vast and rich, though simple and private. Gardeners are at work every morning, and every morning the hands of a Greek woman roll phyllo dough, stuff the traditional tart with thick orange-tree honey, and bottle homemade passata, jams and liquors. Breakfast is served under the shadow of the lemon trees, celebrating the best Mediterranean summer. From the village of Lamyra we see the blue port of Chora, the neoclassic capital. Ktima Lemonies is to us a small empire of elegance and the essence of a Greek island, that is sweet countryside and virgin sea (go patiently down the dirt road south-west of Andros to the public beach of Vori – Nelly says there is a special energy there, and we agree with her).

Words and pictures Meraviglia Paper.