Luxurious villa, 10' from the city, 10' from the beach, 10' from the mountains

Hello, my name is Apostolos. I work as a professor of environmental and climate science at the Technical University of Crete. My wife (also an academic, but additionally a musician), daughter and I moved to Crete in late 2019, after spending more than 15 years in wonderful places abroad. We lived in different cities in the UK (London, Cambridge, Brighton) and the US (New York), and also, earlier in our lives, in Thessaloniki, Greece. But we are Cretans - we were privileged to have grown up in this beautiful land. I, personally, have my fondest childhood memories from this farm, where my grandparents used to live until the close of the 20th century. With my mother (named Athena!), we had the dream to revive it, but to do so in a way that harmonically blends the old and the new. We maintained the old warehouse of the farm, which was built with beautiful local stones, and with that as a basis, we created a luxurious villa that blends with the surrounding landscape. The villa is named 'Athena Elea', after our 5-year old daughter and my mother, who had the inspiration for building this villa. 'Elea' ('ελαία') means 'olive tree' in ancient Greek, a symbol of goddess Athena in antiquity. Impressive olive trees are also a dominant feature in the plot surrounding the villa. They were planted by the Venicians, nearly a thousand years ago.

The villa promises to be the perfect place for relaxing, exploring, and getting a taste of real Cretan life!