Welcome to Kapandriti!

Hello again and welcome to the page of my country-house. People have often accused me that my webpage did not contain enough personal information and only dealt with general topics. So, here is my revenge!

My countryhouse was built in the mid 80's and is situated 700m outside the hamlet of Microhori in the greater area of Kapandriti. Kapandriti is a village in a mountainous region 33km (my apologies to those used to the imperial system) north of Athens. Despite being on the mountains, Kapandriti is only a 15 minute drive from the popular sea-side resort of Kalamos.

Kapandriti literally means "three capes" and this is derived by the extremely cold winters that characterise the region. It almost always snows between December and March and it remains quite cool for most of the year. This can be a nuiscance (especially when the heating system shuts off due to frost) but it is greatly appreciated in the summer when Athens is literaly "boiling". Besides, no feeling compares to sitting next to the fireplace when outside there is a full icestorm.

The house itself stands in the middle of a triangular piece of land of 4000 square meters. It is situated on a hill and enjoys a prominent view of the entire Microhori Valley. The north side of the estate is where my father grows his trees, the east side is covered with lawn (excellent for football) while the south side contains a hut for barbeques and tool storage, a huge pine-tree and an ex-basketball court. The court has collapsed due to years of neglect. The lawn you see, switched our interests from basketball to football and after the weeds came in the wind smashed the basketball board.

The valley around of Microhori used to be heavily wooded until an outbreak of fires in 1994 destroyed most of it. However, the area still boasts of a large population of foxes, woodcocks, rabbits, hedgehogs and other less attractive wildlife that prey on the villagers' hens and my fathers fruit-trees.

As I told you before, the land arround the house is mostly covered by trees. Few of them are very large  (notable exceptions the old pine and the eucalyptus pictured below) but hopefully many will soon grow to a respectable height. Our trees include peaches, olive-trees, pines, oaks, cherry-trees, abies, willows, angelicas and many others, more than 120 trees in total. Add the millions of my mother's flowers and you can understand the volume of work that awaits me and my brother every spring to maintain the lot.

Every year and to my father's immense pride (I still do not understand why he became a doctor instead of a farmer) our field yields its crop. Carloads of cherries, strawberries, appricots, chestnuts and roses are transported to our house in Athens to be distributed to neighbours, relatives and friends.

Finally, the house itself is composed by two stories with a third being possible under the roof-tiles. It is a four bedroom house with two living-rooms, three WCs (one extremely small, one extremely huge), one kitchen, two fire-places, one staircase and six balconies. The lower floor also contains a warehouse, a two-car garage and the control room. The control room contains computers for the central heating, automatic watering-device etc. The warehouse is the safest room of the house as four burglaries failed to gain access to it. All the water supply of the house comes from our own well that is situated in the north corner and is essential for the development of our trees in the summer when water is scarce.

Kapandriti for me means peace, relaxation and isolation from the world. Every summer I spend at least two months up there and despite the occassional slave-labour imposed to us by my father (picking strawberries DOES break your back!) I wouldn't change Kapandriti for any place in the world!

This is the house seen from the west before the roses bloom around the abies

This is another view from the northwest this time. The eucalyptus covers the east side.

The Old Entrance is full of flowers in the spring and summer. Above the door is a part of an ancient Greek kion.

This is a view of the arch our trees create in the estate's western side.

The Eucalyptus is the second tallest tree of the estate. It has already surpased the house in height but the strong winds threaten to break it every winter.