Escape to a Greek island villa for just half the price

The start of the holiday season in the Greek islands is always the time for the best deals and this year is no exception, with Ionian Aegean Holidays offering up to 50 per cent off villas on Cephalonia and 40 per cent on Skopelos, where much of Mamma Mia! was filmed.

This means that a week from Saturday at the three-bedroom Villa Spiros, with a private pool, on Cephalonia, costs from £301 a person when four share and £430 if only two stay.

A week from May 9 at Villa Chloe, also with three bedrooms and a pool, is £349 based on six sharing. Prices include flights from Gatwick (or Manchester with a £25 supplement), car hire and a welcome hamper.

Fourni: the Greek islands you didn't know

Like your geography lessons simple? Okay. Between Turkey and the Greek island of Ikaria (Icarus, sun, problem with wings, fatal crash) is a little archipelago of 12 islands known as Fourni. The archipelago’s main island is called Fourni, and this island’s capital is known as, er, Fourni.

The name might make you think of fornication — the island does have more than 30 stunning beaches; some of them deserted and suitable for that sort of caper — but, according to a 16th-century Venetian geographer called Bordone, it derives from fornelli, meaning small ovens.

Small ovens, not because the place gets bloody hot in summer (which it does), but because the port (that’s the port of Fourni) is concave and reminded someone of a small oven.

So what kind of people live in a small oven, where everything is called Fourni? Strange people, you might not be surprised to hear.

2009 Tribecca Film Festival Goes Greek

The Tribeca Film Festival today announced that My Life in Ruins, directed by Donald Petrie and written by Mike Reiss, will have a special presentation screening as the closing night film of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by founding sponsor American Express. My Life in Ruins, a Fox Searchlight Pictures release, stars Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, María Ádanez, Sheila Bernette, María Botto, Rachel Dratch, Alexis Georgoulis, Ralph Nossek, Bernice Stegers, and Harland Williams, and will open nationwide on June 5, 2009.

Several of the cast members will attend the special screening to be held on Saturday, May 2, 2009, at BMCC TPAC in lower Manhattan. The Festival runs from April 22 to May 3, 2009.

“This year’s Festival has a number of fun and light-hearted films for our audience to enjoy. We are delighted to bring them another crowd-pleasing film, My Life in Ruins, to celebrate our closing night,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Skopelos island, Greece

Grace Hotels introduces two new Greek island properties for the 2009 summer season

Grace Hotels Group has added two more hotels to its luxury boutique collection following the signing of a management agreement with the privately owned Tsimaras Hotels Group. Both hotels are in the Ionian Islands off the west coast of Greece. The 63 room Emelisse Hotel lies on the northern coast of Kefalonia in the famous fishing village of Fiskardo and is now known as the Kefalonia Grace - Emelisse. The 19 room Perantzada Hotel is a newly opened hotel in the picturesque port of Vathy on the island of Ithaki. It is now known as the Ithaki Grace - Perantzada. The new members of the Grace family already enjoy excellent reputations in their own right and will join the acclaimed Mykonos Grace and Santorini Grace located in the Cyclades island cluster.

Commenting on the agreement, Philippe Requin Chief Executive Officer of Grace Hotels Group stated: “Both hotels are beautifully conceived and located, thus fulfilling the Grace criteria of providing understated contemporary elegance and supreme comfort at some of the world’s most stylish destinations and resorts. We are delighted to welcome them into the Grace fold and believe each will add a new dimension to the Grace collection. Meanwhile Grace branding will provide a fitting tribute to the reputation already held by these fine properties.”

Film boosts Greek holiday bookings

The massive popularity of the film Mamma Mia! has given an unexpected boost to the number of UK holidaymakers visiting Greece.

Mamma Mia!, which features film stars Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, has become the UK’s highest-grossing film ever. It is set on the island of Skopelos in Greece.

Airlines and travel operators have reported a shift from euro-zone holidays over the past several months, due largely to the pound’s weakness against the euro, but Greece has actually increased in popularity as a destination.

EasyJet has said that traffic on its flights to Athens has increased by 13 per cent since last July when the film was released. The budget carrier attributes much of the rise in passenger numbers to the film’s appealing depiction of life on the Greek island.

Cyprus: Implausibly sunny island

As the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite, Cyprus has equally impeccable classical credentials. According to Homer's Odyssey, the goddess of love emerged from the waves in a surge of white foam on the island's south coast, next to a craggy limestone rock formation known as Petra Tou Romiou. It was always likely to be my sort of place.

In the end, though, it was the need to travel early in the year that finally took me to Cyprus. It's the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, and also the easternmost and the sunniest. A reputed 300 days of sunshine a year make it a very appealing prospect for visiting outside of the regular summer season.

In early spring, when Greece has yet to warm up, Cyprus is usually blue-skied, balmy and ablaze with fields of flowers. (The wild orchids appear in the lowlands from February. By this time of year, you can expect vivid swathes of scarlet gladioli, alongside silky drifts of almond blossom.)