Garden Holidays are for those with a love of nature, with a yearning for the intimacy of a garden environment, and a taste for a simpler, more essential kind of luxury. For those who like to be a bit away from the hustle and bustle and value the opportunity to relax in the peace and tranquility of a garden.

Paros has been my home for the last 30 years. My husband and I are artists who chose to go off the beaten track to design and build our collection of houses. We have created a lush environment and gardens, based on permaculture and a dedicated study of ecology. I studied as an interior decorator, and with my husband we worked on all the interior features from floors to tiling to woodwork. We care for a variety of animal friends and also run an artist residency in the low season months. We previously traveled the world making jewelry and sculptures, but now we've settled down to the big sculpture of our lives: our home, where gardening and finishing details are our never-ending project.

Our location is a quiet valley behind the peaceful little village of Kamari, on the island’s southwest side. We are fifteen minutes from the airport, ten minutes from the beaches of the picture fishing village of Aliki, and twenty minutes from the port of Parikia. Paros Island is located at almost the exact centre of the Aegean sea, 195 kilometres (121 miles) from Athens, and has been associated with art and culture since the time of the first Cycladic people, whose stylised, geometrical statuary, so strikingly similar to modern art, was created in 2,500 BC. Today the island is a magnet that draws artists, craftspeople, and writers from all over the world. But art is far from being its only attraction. There are spectacular beaches, magnificent rock formations, and trekking paths that wind through the mountains and across the island. There is wind-surfing, kite-surfing, scuba diving, sailing, horse-riding, and tennis, classes of yoga, dancing, cooking. The restaurants of Paros offer cuisine for every taste, from Greek and Middle-Eastern to European and Asian. Every Greek island is, in its own way, unique. We like to think that Paros is just a tiny bit more unique than the rest.