Beautiful stone family villa

Villa Helidona - a home from home! Ideal for groups – beautifully tiled infinity pool – sea & mountain views - relaxing outdoor seating! Meal at our local village taverna on us included! This beautiful stone villa is situated on the hillside only 3km from the popular resort of Nidri. The top features include a stunning deck-level infinity pool, panoramic sea views of the satellite islands & mountains, a large kitchen, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, ping pong table, Wi-Fi, outdoor terraces and BBQ. The space A home from home! This beautiful Greek stone villa is situated on the outskirts of the traditional hillside village of Paleokatouna, only 3km from the popular resort of Nidri. The main features of the house include: panoramic sea and mountain views, a large well-equipped kitchen, five bedrooms, four ensuite bathrooms, one extra downstairs WC, deck-level infinity swimming pool, ping pong table and Wi-Fi. Upon entering this homely villa you are welcomed into a spacious entrance hall. The large fitted kitchen on the right comes complete with two ovens, an island with induction hob, microwave, double sink, dishwasher and ample dinnerware and utensils. The cosy sitting room, on the left, overlooking the pool has a corner sofa, armchair, open fireplace and smart TV. One double bedroom with connectable twin beds is located on the ground floor boasting immediate access to the pool and private en-suite bathroom with shower. Up the sweeping marble staircase to the first floor there are a further four bedrooms. The large master bedroom to the front, with private access to the sundeck overlooking the satellite islands of Lefkada, has a large bathroom with his and her basins, walk-in shower and toilet. Two further bedrooms are interconnected by a shared bathroom, with a double bed in one and twin beds in the other, it is ideal for a family of four. The final and fifth bedroom with twin connectable beds has a balcony overlooking the pool with a table and chairs complete with stone chess set ready to be played! This room also has a private en-suite bathroom with shower. All windows and doors in the villa have mosquito screens. The outside comprises of two shaded seating areas - with comfortable outdoor lounge furniture and a beautiful dining table made with lava from Mount Etna. The swimming pool, BBQ and table tennis provide more entertainment. The raised sun deck with panoramic sea and mountain views - accessed from the master bedroom - is perfect for pre-dinner drinks as the sun sets and casts a magical pink light on the mainland mountains. This villa is perfect for extended families and groups of friends, the lounge and dining area outside make it the perfect place for evening BBQs and social gatherings, overlooking the Ionian islands. The villa meets the standards of the Greek Tourism Board and has been awarded an EOT license for short-term rental. Guest access Guests have private use of the entire property. Other things to note GETTING TO LEFKADA: The island is incredibly accessible due to the bridge that connects it to the mainland, so in addition to the local airport of Preveza, to which numerous airlines fly, there are other options to get here. Many low cost airlines fly into the neighbouring island of Corfu, from which you can take a 1.5 hour ferry to the mainland, collect a hire care and take an enjoyable 2 hour coastal drive south to Lefkada. Flights into neighbouring Kefalonia offer another option, a taxi or hire car from the airport to the ferry port in the north allows you to board a ferry directly to Lefkada. Other options are flights into the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki - both a 5 hour drive to the island largely along new and empty motorways. For further details about these options simply get in touch! THE HISTORY OF LEFKADA - written by Nick Edwards Lefkada largely shares the history of the rest of the Ionian archipelago. There is some evidence of Neolithic settlements and in Homeric times the island is supposed to have been given by Laertes to Arcadius, when their children Odysseus and Penelope got married. This myth and the discovery of some Mycenean remains near Vassiliki led respected nineteenth-century German archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld to claim Lefkada was the real site of Odysseus' home, rather than Ithaki. The island was an important power base for the Corinthians during the Classical period and played a key role in the Peloponnesian War. It became a quiet backwater during Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times and it was later under Venetian control for less time than the other Ionians, only around a century from 1684 to 1797. Its proximity to the mainland also made it more susceptible to Turkish raids and although it was never held by the Ottoman rulers of mainland Greece for long, it did undergo short spells of Tourkokratia. Lefkada also shares the Ionian penchant for music and the arts, boasting its own form of kantades and having been home to some prominent members of the Ionian School of Painting, most notably Panagiotis Doxaras (1662-1729) and his son Nikolaos (1705-75). The most famous man of letters to hail from Lefkada was poet Aristotelis Valaoritis (1824-79) but half Irish/half Greek writer Lefcadio Hearn was also born here and named after the island, although he subsequently wrote more about Japan and New Orleans. The artistic tradition continues into the present day in the shape of the annual Festival of Music, Arts, Literature and Dance, which extends throughout the summer and attracts performers from all over the globe. About Owners Jenny is a Clinical Psychologist and John is a young person's hip surgeon. We met in 1992 and live in Surrey, visiting our Greek escape at every opportunity! Our first introduction to Greece was Jenny in the 60's during the Junta regime- the Greeks were very generous to the apparently destitute students, two of whom ended up giving blood in Athens to raise money! Our first tour of the islands was in 1996 when we took the whole family on an Odysseus flotilla from Corfu to Ithaca/Kefalonia and back to Preveza. Further tours followed. We took our third tour by yacht around the islands in Summer 2001 and somewhere in Nidri, looking up at the stars, we elbowed each other and decided to see if we could buy or build a house on the island. The houses for sale seemed rather expensive (we only later discovered that you only were expected to offer 55-60% of the asking price!) We then discovered a German called Jurgen Kuster (he had married a local lass and the land was hers) who had seven plots, in between zig-zag roads, available for building just above the charming village of Paleokatouna, with its famous Dimitri's taverna. We came to Lefkas in the first weeks of 2002 to look at the site and to sign the deal. The site was astounding (although thorny and inaccessible) and the view enthralling. We decided to choose a solid stone house with modern amenities, building permission was obtained, but then we discovered that the planned house was the wrong way around on the site! This took a month or two to sort out! The stone was cut from the north side of the Melissa gorge, near Tsoukalades in the north of Lefkas. We moved in for the first time in April 2004. Since then we have constantly refined and improved the house over the years. The most dramatic development was in 2012- 2013 when we had a beautiful new internal marble staircase made and converted the house from two three-bedroom flats into a five bedroom house. We also extended the outside spaces and built a garage , a car port, a second large pergola and a large viewing balcony attached to the master bedroom. Registration Details 0831K10000439901