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Now, twenty years on, that same garden again provides vegetables and herbs, the house foundations have been reborn with a new house above them, knarled olive trees have been brought back into fruit, yet more fruit trees have been planted and an expansive garden of Mediterranean flora occupies the hillside.

Levendis Estate is a constantly evolving haven for family holidays and romantic honeymoons on Ithaca, Greece.

The result of our first dreamings was that four houses were each hidden within their own perfumed garden terraces, scattered amongst the olive groves. But what started as a whimsical idea to build a house for each of our four children in this very special place, using the houses as a holiday retreat for others for a few years, has evolved to become anything but whimsical.

Over the years new ideas have seen us constantly building and adding to the facilities offered for our Greek island holidays. We’ve created the environment we would like to holiday; so now there’s a coffee shop in the grounds, a salt water pool, with its design inspired by ancient Greek temples, seems to merge into the bay far below, and hammocks swing in the shade of huge olive trees.

An outdoor cooking space, with refectory tables, provides a kitchen high above the sea and a dining room under the stars, and hidden in the forest is an al-fresco pavilion where our guests indulge in the hedonistic delights of holistic massage therapy treatments, pilates and yoga, with the tranquil backdrop of waves lapping the cliffs.

Levendis Estate fuses romantic, secluded and family-friendly holiday retreat with sustainable farming and organic food production. It doesn’t fit any pre-conceived ideas of family holidays or honeymoons in Greece. It’s on an island, yet its valley environment, backed by mountains, is country. It’s neither villa holiday nor resort. Accommodation and services are those you’d expect of a five-star hotel, appreciated by guests who arrive feeling frazzled by the stress of a year’s work.

Our emphasis is on restoring the soul and having swathes of time to spend with family and friends. Being in a tranquil setting, within nature, enjoying organic fresh foods, rejuvenating natural therapies and the Estate’s own line of body-care products cannot help but dissolve stress.

Seeing children take pleasure in feeling free and secure, exploring at will, helping with farm chores; giving parents the opportunity to spend time together by having child care and a chef to prepare meals; and to spend days swimming, snorkelling, boating during the warmer months, or exploring the island’s mountain pathways awash with wildflowers during spring – this unique combination of environment, services and activities inevitably leads to utter relaxation.

Holidays are arranged on a bespoke basis. Whilst many guests return to rejuvenate their souls with peaceful pursuits, others prefer activities such as walking, cycling or the physical exhaustion our jogging and triathalon courses present, and yet others take to the unbelievably clear Ionian seas for boating, snorkelling and exploring the coast to find the many small coves formed where steep verdant mountainsides plunge into the sea.

Like Ulysses, our years’-long adventure has been entwined with this tiny dot of mountain top called Ithaca, Greece.

But, unlike Ulysses, whose adventure was in the return to Ithaca, we find we cannot leave it. Sharing our lifestyle and providing our unique brand of family holiday or romantic honeymoon in Greece have become our passion.