Well here we are back in Kefalonia getting ready for the 2018 summer season at Vassaliki. Samantha and I have had a crazy winter and the time has flown past so fast that it only feels like we have been away from Kefalonia for a few weeks.  Thanks to all our volunteer helpers we are rattling through all the work, photos can been seen on our facebook page or group.

We have put together a little newsletter to keep everyone updated about all the things that have happened over the winter and news of new things for the coming summer.

Reunion

The big event this winter was the 4th sell out Vassaliki Reunion Weekend held in January at the Moorhill House Hotel in Burley, New Forest.

The weekend started on the Friday afternoon as guests slowly arrived at the hotel which we had exclusively hired for the weekend. Samantha and I were greeting everyone as they arrived and as this is the biggest reunion we have ever held we were soon busy chatting and welcoming everyone.

Guests spent the first afternoon meeting up with friends new and old chatting and drinking in the lounge or in one of the two hot tubs that had been installed in the hotel garden especially for the weekend.

7pm and our first meal was served in the function hall, a Mediterranean style buffet with the sounds of a local guitar player/ singer. This was supposed to be a quiet first evening but being a Vassaliki Reunion, tables where soon being moved out the way and impromptu dancing took their place.

Saturday was time to explore the local forest and village, many guests seemed to find their way to the New Forest cider press which was a convenient short walk down the road as was the witchcraft village of Burley. While others relaxed in the hot tubs, pool and sauna which were of course naturist for the weekend. Lucy dog was at the event this year and was taken (we think…) for four walks, so spent the rest of the evening in our hotel room asleep.

The highlight for the weekend has always been the Gala dinner. Everyone was dressed in their finest clothes and descended on the lounge bar for pre dinner drinks and  amazing close hand tricks from the magician. Dinner service was perfect with an amazing four course meal served by the hotel chefs. During the meal the entertainment started with a surprise visit from the ‘little man with the big voice: Rusty’s Songbook’. This is the new act from my brother Jason.  Rusty was making his debut appearance at our Reunion and what a welcome he got. Have a look at the short film that was shot at our reunion: https://youtu.be/wvwL9tNgCU0

This year we ran a raffle in aid of Motor Neurone Disease in memory of one of our beautiful guests Dawn who died in August 2017 from the disease. We were so pleased to present £520 to her husband Mark who we were honoured to have join us at our Gala meal.

Once all the food had been consumed it was time for our favourite band The Unusual Suspects to play us through to the end of the evening with their superb mix of popular songs, finishing with the traditional ‘Hey Jude’ huddle!

Sunday came around too fast and everyone made their way home. Thank you to all of you who joined us this winter and keep your eyes peeled for the our next reunion in 2020.

Secret piece of Kefalonia Magic!

Samantha and I (along with Nick the chef) feel ashamed of ourselves as we have been keeping a small secret from you all. During last summer we heard about a traditional village taverna not far from Vassaliki that is very popular with the locals. It is hidden away amongst the many small villages.

Samantha, Nick and I went off on a recognisance mission to check it out and found a garden restaurant that has been left back in time.  The setting is idilic Greek and the food, well that was amazing, simple but tasty. A small simple menu, slow service, local wine, and basic beautifully cooked old style Greek food. Well we loved it so much we decided not to tell anyone about it as it was already busy and as we wanted to go the following week again we were worried we may not get a seat😂!

Anna’s opens late in June through to early September, so if you want to know where it is…well I’ll think about telling you when you get here…!

Save Our Seas

The news lately seems to be constantly about environmental issues and most of all about the massive amount of plastic in our seas. This came to light after the amazing Blue Planet 2 series on BBC1 when the program showed viewers huge fields of plastic waste floating on and below the surface of the sea.

We at Vassaliki, are big fans of the sea and spend most of our free time swimming, snorkelling, sailing, waterskiing and boating on the waters around Kefalonia.

Blue Planet has prompted us at Vassaliki to try and reduce the amount of plastic we use at the resort, so we will be only giving out card straws with drinks and reusable stirrers with the cocktails.

We also want to reduce the large number of plastic bottles we use. So we will now be selling Vassaliki reusable drinking bottles from our resort shop. All guests who purchase a bottle will have free access to use our new water coolers which will be situated around the resort.

The water is dispensed from 20L bottles that are returned and refilled when empty. The water is offered cold or room temperature.

We hope that with your help we can reduce the number of water bottles used at Vassaliki by over 600 bottles. THAT’S approximately 1/4 ton of plastic that won’t end up in our seas!

We will continue to recycle all our cans, glass and non reusable plastic bottles as well as cardboard and paper from the resort.

Last few rooms

The resort is now looking like it will be as busy as last summer. We have reached all our booking targets but have a few rooms we would love to sell.

We have just sadly had a cancellation for the fully booked June period so we have just got a 20 night period from 23rd June to 13th of July in a One Bedroom Apartment become available for €130 per night. You can book all or part of this period.

We still have some nice rooms available for July and August. This period is the best for the weather and the island is a buzz with events.

September is now fully booked from 26th of August until September 26th when we still have rooms available at discounted rate until we close on 10th October.

All bookings up to now have been for a minimum of seven nights, but we have just launched on our online site, the ability to book for four or more nights for those of you who only have a short break or maybe want to travel on to other parts of the island. This will hopefully allow us to fill some of the holes we have between bookings.

So if you are traveling through Kefalonia and would like a short stay with us book now online at http://www.viglanatura.com/book

Well that’s it for 2017, the resort is now all closed and Samantha and I are well and truly settled back into the UK routine.

We have a busy winter ahead with work already started towards summer 2018. Bookings are going well and once again we are meeting our booking targets for 2018 with some periods already becoming fairly full and many other popular periods selling well.

There are exciting new flights with BA from Heathrow & some early bird special offers, further details on all this found below.

We have all the rooms sold for our popular reunion weekend 19th to 21st January and we are working hard to make this even better than last year!

Samantha, Mark and all the team at Vassaliki would like to wish you, your family and friends a great Christmas and a prosperous & healthy New Year.

Breaking News

 

We now have scheduled flights direct to EFL (Kefalonia) from London Heathrow with British Airways. They fly Tuesdays and Saturdays and at the time this newsletter went out they were £59 each way on the Tuesday flight!!!! Get booking now, there is still availability for the summer months for 2018!

Staff

We are really pleased to announce that Colin and Alex have agreed to join us again for next summer and will continue to offer their Pilates and Art classes which have been amazingly popular along with their never-ending energy.

We are sad to say that Nick the chef has decided to take next summer off. He has some other projects he wants to do next year and he will be missed by us all. But not to worry, we will still have our restaurant running as usual with many of Nicks ideas and recipes still being used. Nick has left a hard act to follow but I am looking forward to the challenge.

Little Sam (Tinklebell) has also agreed to return next summer and will once again be running the housekeeping side of the resort for us. Her laugh and energy are infectious and we look forward to having her back on the team next summer.

Do you fancy joining the team? We are considering getting another chef to work in our busy restaurant. Do you have the skills and want a summer in the sun? Have a look at the job on our website. http://www.viglanatura.com/join-the-team-in-2018

Discount for 2018

 

 

It’s a dogs life

One of the things many of the guests love about Vassaliki is our four legged friends who have lived with us at the resort. We have had a dog on resort since we opened in 2007 when we brought Sheba with us from the UK. Our white and tan labrador/ collie cross was a big hit with guests and she became very much part of the team here. When she passed away in October 2012 Samantha and I decided we would take some time off having a dog but soon found we had a big part of our life missing and many guests commented on the fact it was nice having a dog on site.

In 2013 Simon and Sheryle joined our team and they brought along Archie, who soon settled into resort life. He is a little water baby, loved swimming in the sea and the guests splashing him from the pool.  He had his favourite guests (normally the ones who brought him treats) and the resort seemed to be back in balance again.

We have now over the last 10 years rescued four dogs from Kefalonia. The first dog that came to us was Dexter in the summer of 2013.  A crazy ball of fluff who was about four months old when he was left with us. We had him all sorted with injections and a passport to bring him back to the UK with us, but there was an issue… Dexter was travel sick and with the lifestyle Samantha and I live we needed a dog who can travel and we weren’t really looking for a dog at this stage. We quickly found Dexter an amazing new home on the Isle of Wight with a young family. He was flown from Kefalonia to reduce travel time for him and was collected at Gatwick by his new family.  We still visit Dexter and he is doing amazing work with children who are finding life a little difficult, we are so proud of him.

 

Samantha and I have always been lovers of animals, I even spent time working for the RSPCA in the UK. So when we took our collection money we made from our reunion raffle to the Kefalonia animal rescue centre we stupidly stopped at the puppy pen (Samantha’s fault) and we found Lucy Lou. She was about 8 weeks old covered in fleas but we just fell in love with her. She soon become a perfect resort dog, still to this day she loves meeting our guests and she even runs guided tours to the local mini market. She travels in the car with us back and forth between the UK and Greece each year, she copes with anything we put her through as she is just happy to be with us.

Next was a rescue for some friends of ours who have a house near our resort. They found a spaniel-cross who they wanted to take back to the UK with them. They had to leave Kefalonia so left him with us at the resort while we prepared to return to the UK ourselves in our camper.  Wilf stayed on resort for about four weeks before joining Lucy and us on our four day trip back to the UK where we delivered him to his new family in Cambridge.

Our latest rescue was this year. While visiting the local olive press we came upon a small tan and white puppy who was about 8 months old. He was very friendly and in amazing condition. His coat was clean with only a small number of fleas, the press owner said he was dumped that morning by an old man. Our sailing trip hostess Leanne wanted to get a rescue dog so a few phone calls were made and the decision was to collect him and get him to the vets for a medical check up. He was in good health so all the necessary paperwork, injections and procedures were completed to allow the young dog to return to the UK. He stayed with us at the resort until he was ready to join us for the long trip back to the UK. After three throw ups in the first 11km (the Kefalonia roads are twisty) he settled down really well and seemed to take the trip in his stride.

Olie is now settled with his new family near the New Forest and we are lucky enough to see him most weekends when we all meet up for a forest walk where we seem to keep finding pubs on route!

All the dogs we rescue have been very lucky to find new homes and loving families. Samantha and I are proud of the small amount of work we have done to help these few individuals.