I’m staying at a retreat centre/ eco-village called Kalikalos. It is situated next to the tiny village of Anilio, on the eastern side of the mountains of the Pelion peninsula, about 300 metres altitude, and about 2kms inland from the sea. The place is a gorgeous combination of high mountains, deep luscious greens, and vibrant, deep blues in the sea below.
Here you are high above the sea, and green and blue are the two colours which grace your eyes.My first evening I walked down through the forest and stood entranced by the vibrancy of the tangle of life around myself.The next afternoon I was immersing myself in blue. Warm, clear sea water. Surely this is like being on Hawaii without the expense!Being high above blue sea, surrounded by green, it is hard not to feel ecstatic about this environment.Schist with marble and quarze here and there..The tortoises in Greece can live up to 125 years old – If I found an old one it could have met Queen Victoria.The thick slate roofs of the Pelion give a vernacular touch to the architecture.The lawns after I just mowed them – Kalikalos, Anilio.Lunch – some of it grown in the gardens here. Setting the table for lunch at Kalikalos. Walking up to a taverna at Kissos I passed this old abandoned house. The jungle grows back. Soon after I saw this, I heard a nightingale sing, and then it was then joined by a peal of church bells from down the valley. Kissos town square – the villages here usually have ancient plane trees in the centre, and a friendly dog is common.Orchards grow delicious fruit on the Pelion.There are few places in the world where the land swoops upwards to over a thousand metres in pure green, from such blue water below. Why isn’t the Pelion more famous around the world?
