The village in Pelion, Greece, where our house is

Drakia, our village




Stone made roofs in Drakia

 In one of the exceptionally green mountains, Pelion in Thessaly, the homeland of the Centaures


An old public fountain in Drakia

 

The village in autumn




An old mansion in Drakia

 


Walking in the village





Panorama of Drakia from a footpath around

 

The old main road leading in the mountain's top, starting from the
central square

The village, as many mountain villages in Greece, has known days of wealth in the 19th century, then difficulties and the cruelties of war and Nazi occupation, poverty and decline. It is now recovering slowly with the help of tourism.

For many decades Drakeia had been one of the biggest villages in Pelion. It used to have many two floor buildings like small mansions and a web of cobbled path roads. People that lived there had made money trading cotton in Egypt and fertilizers in greek cities and built their houses in those villages. In the beginning of the 20th century economical decline began, but for Drakeia the Nazi occupation was the period that brought a catastrophe. One day the resistant army of the mountains killed two german soldiers and the occupant authorities then slaughtered 120 men in Drakeia as retaliation…You can see the monument of the martyrs in the village’s square.

After the war, as the village tried to recover from the loss, an earthquake at 1955 destroyed most of the nice mansions and many others had to be demolished because they became dangerous to dwelling. Small single-storey houses had been built instead, and the village lived in poverty for decades.

Drakeia was my grandmother’s birthplace, but I only visited when I was a student at the University without her even knowing. We fell in love at first sight with its beauty and from that moment we tried to stay there for a few days almost every year. We finally built a house in 1990, and began to plant its garden.

It is a place of exquisite beauty, of exceptional nature. Winter, spring, summer, autumn, every month has its own scenery, its own fruits, foods, and pleasures. The children go skiing in winter (I never learnt how), we swim in summer, walk in autumn and gather fruit and enjoy blooming in spring. One can never have enough of that beauty and every day brings a new delight.

After 12 years we discovered the possibility of house exchange and have exchanged our house and our car many times already. People have been here appreciated the landscape and enjoyed the weather, the greenery, the sea and the calm. With the help of books we have collected that guide you everywhere in the area and also the help of our kind neighbours, they can find footpaths, gardens, squares, walks, they enjoy the house, the village, the mountain.
We love visiting other countries, meeting other people and helping them getting to know of our beloved village. And when we come back from far away, or from not so far, we can appreciate it again.