During Easter in Aosta, I started reading a favourite writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, beginning a two-volume treat, Mani and Roumeli.  By chapter 2 of Mani, I discovered that he and his wife Joan, with whom he travelled in this part of the southern Peloponnese, later built themselves a home by the sea there in which they spent the rest of their lives.

It seems they bequeathed the house to the Benaki Museum, ensuring it could be used as a writer’s retreat. It is being restored, apparently with restraint, and should be ready for use from 2018.  In the meantime, I fell in love with one photo of the living room, a reader-writer’s dream place to read, think, nap, talk.

Source: ‘Stories from Patrick Leigh Fermor’s House’, by Athos Dimoulas

Photo credit: © Julia Klimi