Your experience

As you open the window, your heart fills with the sight of the sea and your mind instantly overflows with its endless roaring. You find peace. You open yourself to the timeless universe…

This is the first experience you get in the refuge we’ve built for you. And right at that second you feel you are at home, like you’re back to your roots. Back to that place where millions of years ago, you took your first breaths and started your great journey on earth. Your refuge is on the hill that the locals call Sapsila, (paraphrasing the Greek word for shivers), because of the millions of crushed stones, small and large. From up there, there is nothing to stand over or before you. There is yourself, the sea and the sky. That way, it’s just you and the birds that first get to know what ship (friendly or corsair) enters the island’s embrace. And if you lie on the sofa and look up after the day puts on its dark veil, you can’t hold back the laughter, the tears and the silence. Oh the splendor! Countless stars to remind us of the infinity, our own infinity…Of the beauty, our own beauty…

You close your eyes holding that image. You lay on the king sized beds with their baldachins and you let the waves and the night’s silence lull you to sleep. Then, the monastery rooster from below will invite another day to come at daybreak. The lonesome “Loukakia” beach glitters under your balcony welcoming the company of a lucky few. Lower still, stands a dish of “Pilaff”. That’s how the locals said the island in front of us is called. Some of our visitors though, swear that at some hours of the day it looks like a roaring bear. Those are the games that light can play with the stone. All day long.

You’ll experience the same rite with the stones your “arhontiko” is made of. All of them born of the vein that spouted when we dug into our land. We are so thankful to it. We hope it’s happy with how we combined its offspring (downstairs and upstairs) with the wooden beams, the trunks that sea got to hew, the white plaster on some of the walls, the wooden floors, the sweet blue windows and cupboards, the Patmos’s traditional tiles on the downstairs floor, the ceramic shreds on the balcony’s walls.

Black and white pebbles, inserted one by one, shape a dolphin or an eagle or a star and start your initiation to the art and life of Patmos: its Irene’s and Christos’ way to open their hearts to you, welcome you to their world and get to know yours. From the minute you step through the door, you discover a folk art museum made for your personal enjoyment. The embroidered curtains, wooden sofas, old windows, cabinets, tables, chairs, lamps and rugs, the stone built fireplace, all take you back to the age of innocence. Here you can finally let go.