♥ Greece ...

I have had this fascination for Greece since childhood. Not sure why as I don't appear to have any relatives from Greece! 

For as long as I can remember, I have this idea that I will retire to a little Greek Island with all my pottery goodies to keep these fingers going and my kids and grand kids can visit me there!  The plan is to visit Greece sometime this year!   I was not thinking of Greece at alI but looking for photo's to pin and remembered seeing some photos a while back by photographer Gerda Genis who I posted about after coming across this photo and others in the Taste magazine ...

so I googled her and came across her website and blog about this beautiful villa on the island of Ithaka which I would love to visit especially to do a week art get away!  I then googled Ithaka and came across a book called "North of Ithaka" by Eleni Gage,

which in turn led me to this blog A Rolling Crone and along with it the memories. I got to read a bit about Eleni in 1983 in a Readers Digest - the book was not available in South Africa yet. Eleni Gatzoyiannis was executed, at the age of 41, by a firing squad of Communist guerrillas because she had managed to get four of her five children led out of their little village called Lia. Her son Nicholas Gage wrote their amazing story.  I was pregnant at the time and completely convinced I was having a girl and her name would be Lia. Eleni is a sad but inspiring story and monument to an amazing women.

Lia will be 30 in December and I am hoping to finally visit Greece, especially the village of Lia. Thanks to Joan Gage for the update even if I only got to it nearly 2 years later! Just got to love the world wide web!