It’s Greece!

When Neil, Nola and I first started Naxos Creative, we knew we didn’t want to create the sort of retreat where you simply arrive at a hotel, attend a few workshops and go home again.

We wanted you to feel that, for a week, you had properly gone away.

Away from work, cooking, shopping, emails and all the everyday things that fill our heads. Away to a Greek island where there is time to read a whole book in a day if you want to. Time to write without looking at the clock. Time to talk about books over dinner, swim before breakfast, sit under a tree with a notebook, or spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing.

And Greece is a very important part of that.

We don't want to take people to Greece and somehow remove all the Greekness from it.

Because Greece is glorious. But it is also different.

So here are a few things worth knowing before you come.

The loo paper goes in the bin

We might as well start with the big one.

Yes. It really does. In many parts of Greece, including the islands, the plumbing simply isn't designed to cope with toilet paper. You'll see a small covered bin beside the loo and that is where the paper goes. For those of us brought up in Britain, it can feel completely peculiar at first. Then you get used to it. It isn't about whether you are staying somewhere inexpensive or in a beautiful hotel. It is about the infrastructure. Greece has different plumbing. And if putting loo paper in a bin is the price we pay for waking up on a Greek island and taking our book down to the sea after breakfast, we're prepared to live with it.

Don't drink the tap water

On Naxos, we drink bottled or filtered water rather than water straight from the tap. You can shower in it, wash in it and brush your teeth with it, but when you're thirsty, reach for your bottle. And please keep water in your room overnight.

This is particularly important during a retreat because our days can be surprisingly full. You might do yoga in the morning, join a workshop, walk to the beach, swim, read in the sunshine and then sit chatting over dinner with a glass of wine.

Even if you feel as though you've done very little, the Greek heat and sun can catch up with you. Hydration really does matter.

Our hotels are part of the experience

We choose our hotels carefully.

We want somewhere beautiful and welcoming, somewhere we can gather, somewhere you can disappear with a book, somewhere that feels right for a Naxos Creative retreat. But we don't choose enormous international resorts where you could wake up and have no idea whether you were in Greece, Spain or Florida. We want to be in Greece.

That means Greek hospitality and Greek breakfasts. Bougainvillea, blue skies and cats appearing from nowhere. It may also mean smaller bathrooms, a shower that has its own personality, reception that isn't staffed all night, or Wi-Fi that decides it would also like an afternoon off. And occasionally island life reminds us that we really are on an island. There may be a power cut. Water pressure might temporarily drop. The wind may get up and the ferries may stop. Something that would be fixed immediately at home may take a little longer here.

We've learned that you can either spend your time fighting Greece or you can live in it.

Reading and writing happen differently here

This is one of the things I find fascinating. People arrive with books they haven't had time to open for months. Or they've been trying to write something at home and getting nowhere. And then something changes. Perhaps it's because somebody else is making breakfast.

Perhaps it's because there isn't a washing machine beeping or a supermarket shop to do. Perhaps it's the sea. But there is something about having a few days where your only real responsibility is to turn up. You can sit by the pool and read. You can take your notebook to a café. You can talk to one of our visiting writers about a book you love. You can spend a morning in a workshop and then let everything you've talked about settle while you swim. And some of the best conversations happen nowhere near a workshop table. They happen over dinner, on the walk back from the beach, or when someone says, "Have you read…?" and suddenly six people are talking about books.

That is as much Naxos Creative to us as anything on the official programme.

Don't expect to be hurried

Greeks generally eat later than we do in Britain. Meals can take time. Service can be leisurely.

And if you've finished eating, nobody is particularly desperate to reclaim your table. At first, that can feel different. Then you realise how lovely it is. Some of my favourite retreat moments have been at the end of a meal when nobody gets up. Someone orders another coffee. Somebody starts talking about the book they've just finished. Our visiting writer joins in. Another conversation begins at the other end of the table. Suddenly it is much later than we thought.

Those are the bits you can't put on an itinerary.

There will be cats

Lots of them.

They will sit under your table and stare at you with the tragic expression of an animal that has clearly never been fed. Do not be fooled. They have almost certainly just performed exactly the same routine at the next taverna

We will look after you — but we also want you to embrace it

When you come away with Naxos Creative, you are not simply booking a room in a hotel. You are our guest for the week.

Neil, Nola and I are there. We know the hotels, the island and the people we work with. If you're worried, uncomfortable or something isn't right, tell us. Please don't sit quietly worrying about something we could probably sort out.

Looking after people matters enormously to us. But part of what we hope you'll take away from a Naxos Creative retreat is also the pleasure of letting go a little. Things might not happen exactly as they do at home.

Come and read.

Come and write.

Come and swim.

Come and talk about books with people who love them as much as you do.

Eat outside. Stay too long at dinner. Read another chapter. Talk to a writer you've admired for years. Make friends with people you didn't know a week ago. And if the Wi-Fi disappears for twenty minutes? Pick up your book.

You're in Greece.

Ros
Naxos Creative