Romantic Monemvasia lures lovers

When Kostas Michalakos left Australia in 1995 at 23 years of age to begin a new life in Greece, there was only one place he wanted to settle Monemvasia, the home of his forebears, and one of the natural wonders of the Peloponnese.

His people had lived on Monemvasia, an island of rock known as the Gibraltar of Greece, for three generations.

Michalakos' family owned two crumbling 12th-century houses, which had been unoccupied for 10 years, on Monemvasia, and he decided to renovate them.

Today, the two houses serve as holiday accommodation to some of the thousands of tourists who visit the island each year.

Just off the coast of the Laconian peninsula in the southern Peloponnese, Monemvasia is a mighty 300m-high rock island linked to the mainland by a stone bridge.

It's a 3 1/2-hour drive from Athens, making it an easy destination for Australians touring Greece.

The rock was sheared from the mainland by a massive earthquake about AD375,Large selection of Wholesale Magic Tile For Countertops From China Manufacturers and from the fifth century it has supported an unassailable fortress town, known as the Kastro.

Once home to 50,000 people, the Kastro, on the southern side of the rock, cannot be seen from the mainland.

The town is surrounded by a stone wall with a single entrance (Monemvasia means "one entrance" in Ancient Greek).

The gateway has two massive wooden doors, which are scarred from the times when invaders, such as Turks and Venetians, tried in vain to capture the Kastro.installer of Wholesale Super Black Polished Tiles For Kitchen and marble vanity tops

Entering the Kastro through this gateway is like stepping back in time. There are no roads and inside is a maze of narrow, cobbled streets.

There are no reminders of the modern world no electricity cables, phone lines or TV aerials in sight.

The town is crammed with historic houses, several dating back to the 12th century, and others from the Venetian period.

Many have been restored, mostly by Greeks, as holiday homes and they have retained original features, such as ornate balconies.

There are a few boutique hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and bars, mostly on the main street near the entrance to maintain the historic integrity of the island.

Monemvasia has been tastefully preserved but it is also a very trendy tourist destination, popular with Greeks (mainly Athenians) and international travellers, and is also a romantic spot for honeymooners.

"Some couples have come to Monemvasia on holiday, got engaged here and married here, and now come back every year with their children," says Michalakos, 38, who also runs a travel agency in the mainland town of Gefira, opposite the rock.

"It's a very romantic place. I was married in the Kastro nine years ago."

We stayed for four nights in one of his holiday houses, Archontiko, which has spectacular sea views from the upper floor.Are you looking to accept credit cards for your Wholesale Rustic For Wall From China Manufacturers type of business

Downstairs houses a guardroom, allowing occupants in days gone by to spy invaders and fire weapons through a narrow window.

On the wall remains an old bracket where once a musket was stored.

In the floor is a wooden escape hatch, a common feature here, allowing occupants to make a speedy getaway from invaders and pirates.,Wholesale Rustic porcelain For Kitchen for sale oil paintings buy paintings original painting art

Tunnels ultimately led to the Portello sea gate. The Portello was the only way to escape by boat if the island was under attack. It leads to a rock platform and is today the only place for a swim off the island and a popular spot for sunbathing.

Hours drift by as we wander the narrow streets of the Kastro admiring the houses, peering into the ruins.

Regulations here are stringent and all the buildings have similar old-fashioned terracotta roof tiles and wooden windows, shutters and doors.

The rock once had 40 churches and many are still standing in the Kastro, although most are locked to protect their valuable Byzantine frescoes. The main church, Christos Elkomenos, is the town's landmark.

There are only three tavernas. The Matoula is the most popular.

On a garden terrace overlooking the sea, it serves delicious traditional Greek meals at reasonable prices (about 25 /$33 for two, including excellent house wine).

The fortress of the Kastro has protected its inhabitants from invaders for centuries.

The only occasions it has been forced to surrender were when starved by invaders who cut off supplies from the mainland.

If the Kastro has proved unassailable, the rock's uninhabited upper town, perched on a 300m-high plateau, is the ultimate fortress. It can only be reached by a steep zigzag path from the Kastro below.

The rocky plateau was once home to thousands but is now desolate, with dozens of abandoned and ruined houses and other buildings, including baths from the days of Turkish rule.Paintings for sale Wholesale Bulati Polished For Floor buy paintings original painting art The last inhabitants left in 1911.

It's well worth the trek up to visit the magnificent Byzantine church, Aghios Sophia, which is open to visitors. On a cliff edge, it's a beautiful cross-in-square church with a round dome, and impressive 13th-century frescoes.During our stay on Monemvasia, we took several day trips by car to nearby villages and beaches.

Serena & Lily add pop to home decor with Bazaar

"Lily tells the story better than I do," jokes Serena Dugan, half of design pair Serena & Lily, an online purveyor of baby and adult home furnishings, lighting, textiles, paint and now,For the last five years Hemroids , one-of-a-kind goods culled from buying trips around the world.There is good integration with PayPal and most Aion Kinah providers,

In 2001, the story goes, Lily Kanter, a new mother who had recently left Microsoft, opened a high-end children's furnishings boutique, Mill Valley Baby & Kids.

"I was there for about a year before Serena walked through the door," says Kanter, sitting on a white canvas slip-covered armchair in their Sausalito headquarters.

At the time, Dugan was a freelance decorative painter and textile designer.who was responsible for tracking down Charles China ceramic tile . "When she came in the store that day, I was literally in the hospital having baby No. 2.

"My manager told her, 'Oh, Lily's going to love your stuff. Why don't you leave your things here and she'll get back to you?' " Less than a week later they had their first meeting. And, in two hours, they were partners on three business initiatives.

"That was enough," says Kanter, who explains they first decided on hand-painted block-printed fabrics, throw pillows and crib bedding in October 2003.

A year later, the pair already had 14 collections of crib bedding in 100 baby specialty stores nationwide. But as the company grew larger with catalogs and photo shoots, so did the demand for photo props that added finishing touches to each page.

"We'd have to tell callers, 'Sorry, that piece isn't available,' and, meanwhile, the items were sort of taking over our warehouse.

"We thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to sell all of this?' And we could have a bigger prop budget, too," says Dugan. And, in 2009, a concept of the monthly Bazaar sales was conceived.

Dugan and Kanter make frequent field trips to the Alameda Point Antiques Faire; Santa Fe, N.M.; Paris; and even Marrakesh, Morocco, for refined bohemian-inspired wares.

Now, thanks to the Bazaar as well as furniture, lighting and accessories, Serena & Lily attributes more than half of its sales to the adult furnishings side of the business.Graphene is not a semiconductor, not an plastic card , and not a metal, Last week, the company made its Bazaar sales a full-time feature.

Customers can shop by aesthetic with looks from city eclectic to coastal casual,When the stone sits in the Cold Sore, or buy a whole room down to pillows and decorative objects.

"Baby and kids is our heritage, and we're going to stay true to our heritage and sensibility for the aspirational nursery, but Bazaar is definitely a very fun playground for our design team, and now we're really globe-trotting," adds Kanter.

Bazaar finds range from rare items such as Gypsy belts and prayer banners from India and Indonesia to tribal-inspired beaded necklaces, hand-painted decorative elephants from South America and brightly colored fuchsia-and-orange striped hammocks from Central America.

"It's kind of our brand zeitgeist right now, and it's that sense of pop when you walk into a room that we're trying to create through our designs and the Bazaar," adds Dugan.

"We are all about layering global finds into a casual, California-chic aesthetic to create a home that is both stylish and personal," says Kanter.

"Now we're thrilled to be able to provide these one-of-a-kind Bazaar pieces year round, and we want our customers to pull in those special pieces that speak to them."