Greece: 18 Years of Love, Discovery and Meaning

The moment I fell in love.

It’s been almost 18 years since I first traveled in Greece. A different life. I was someone else. I was with someone else. I didn’t even know what I wanted from life.

It was 2008. I couldn’t read the greek alphabet, I didn’t understand the language, and my biggest fear was… getting lost.

I drove all the way to Athens to visit my mother, who had been working there since 2004. I asked her, at 2 AM, to go outside and check the street name signs, because she didn’t quite know how to write down the address for us.

When we arrived, it was pure joy. Pure longing. What a moment.

Prokopos Lagoon. The day I fell in love with Greece!

That was when Greece entered my life. At first, just as a trip. Then as a revelation. And today… as a conscious life choice.

In 2009, I even lived in Athens for a few months.

David’s father, my partner of 12 years, was a PhD student at the time and an entomologist, a man passionate about nature, science, and exploration. Together we travelled across Europe and mainland Greece, always on a tight budget, guided by instinct and paper maps.

We slept in the car, discovered wild, untouched places, and I took photos whenever something moved me.

That’s how we ended up one night in a place called Kalogria, in the Achaia region. Tired, we parked somewhere random. I had no idea where we were. In the distance, lit only by the car headlights, I saw the shimmer of water.

Complete darkness otherwise.

And in the morning… something deeper than sound woke me.

A stillness that made me pause from the race of life.

The Prokopos Lagoon.

And the umbrella pines, those delicately sculpted trees, like characters from a fairytale, standing like silent guardians over my sleep. I watched their reflections in the water, gently swaying in the horizon, as if whispering messages thousands of years old.

Messages of longing. Of calling. Of remembering.

For the first time, without even knowing, I felt my soul had roots.

It was my “wow” moment. I can’t fully describe it, but I still feel the shiver along my spine, my whole skin alive with emotion.

My mother often teases me that I haven’t yet found my roots. That I’ve changed too many houses, too many places.

But I know now:

My roots are not in a building. They’re in a feeling.

And that feeling… is in Greece.

Another magical moment followed

A sunset with the Rio–Antirrio bridge in sight. I was in a trance.

I had crossed that bridge many times, driven down that same road near Antirrio countless times, without knowing that, just below the expressway, lay Nafpaktos, the town I would discover only in 2024, while searching for a place we could call “home”.

Rio-Antirrio Bridge, over the Gulf of Corinth. One of my favourite places in the World.

I had always felt drawn to that area. I felt its calm, its grounding, its calling, but it kept itself hidden, waiting for the right time.

Life moved on. My path with David's father separated.

Because David’s father was the person with whom I began all these journeys.

He wasn’t a mistake. He wasn’t “not the right one.”

He was exactly what I needed in order to see the world, to learn, to grow, to become.

I’m not sure I would’ve had the courage to do all of it alone.

But life has its cycles. And each stage needs its own people.

Since 2022, Greece has returned to my life, after a 3-year break. With different eyes. A different soul.

Beside a different man, my current partner.

A man with deep sensitivity, with the music and dances of Greece in his blood, though he didn’t know it yet. Together, we discovered and we are still discovering a different Greece.

I wanted so much to show him the places I loved.

And we drove thousands of kilometers each time, to revisit them, and discover new ones.

After 9 road trips through Greece over the past 3 years, we both understood something:

Greece is not just a place you want to return to.

It’s a place you want to stay.

To live differently.

To breathe differently.

To build with meaning.

There, we both felt it: “This is home.”

And now… we’re making this dream a reality.

I have photographed "HOME" long before I knew it.

And David, my child who loves water and waves, who felt the sea for the first time at just 6 months old, has now visited Greece 11 times before the age of 12.

For him, Greece isn’t a holiday.

It’s part of his childhood. Part of our life.

I know some of you were surprised by our decision.

But I’ll say this with all honesty:

Greece is not an escape. It’s not a whim.

Greece grew with me. It waited for me to understand it.

And now, patiently, it waits for us to call it home.

I don’t know who still reads my stories to the end. Maybe I write mostly for myself. Maybe for souls who are searching for something similar.

But if you’ve made it this far… thank you.

And I hope that, in some quiet or deep way, you’ve also felt the calling of a place, of a “home” that has more to do with meaning than with walls.

If you have… leave me a sign. A thought. Your story.

Maybe together we’ll remember how roots are truly made.