During your farmhouse stay vacation you can take beautiful walks around our organic farm and pick fruits directly from our fruit trees, hop on a mountain bike and visit the surrounding hills and farms, work with us and pick olives and make olive oil, collect almonds, pick herbs and harvest and press grapes to make wine. During your rural holiday with us you can participate in local cuisine cooking and wine tasting courses, natural soap making workshop, learn to bake and make marmalades. Relax and let us take care of your culinary needs with vegetarian cuisine made with fresh vegetables from our organic garden. Read your book, enjoy a massage or paint the amazing Laconic Mountains, Parnonas and Taygetos. During your stay our fruit and vegetable gardens will be the base for the nourishment providing you with a full spectrum of organic products covering all your needs.
Eumelia is located in the Peloponnese, in the prefecture of Laconia near the village of Gouves. A diverse holiday destination and region that includes a vast range of ancient sites, historical monuments, museums, beaches, and picturesque villages on the mountains or by the sea side. Situated near ancient and modern Sparta, Mystras, Monemvasia and the Mani region, we are the ideal base for your travels, explorations and participation in many ecotourism activities such as hiking, mountain biking and canoe/kayak. The Laconic Gulf between the two mountain ranges of Taygetos and Parnonas provide the area with an amazing variety of experiences from local cuisine, architecture, nature, scenery with alternating horizons and backgrounds.
Our ecological cottages at the heart of the organic farm, as well as the other hotel facilities use environmentally-friendly material and have been designed to utilize nature's forces. We attach great importance to recycling and we employ many different recycling methods: water is recycled and then used for farming purposes, whereas compost is created from all the organic material at the farm, as well as from the hotel facilities. Built in the traditional Greek farmhouse architecture with modern elegance each of the houses has its own private garden and a large veranda with great view of the farm and the surrounding mountains.
Furthermore, the buildings are heated and cooled with geothermal power, using heat pumps to minimize the use of petroleum or electricity. Our standard-setting natural waste management, based on the root system, is the first of its kind in southern Greece. In the future, with the use of solar power, we hope to achieve one hundred percent self-sufficiency thereby creating an excellent example of sustainable development.
Activities
Olive Oil Tasting
It is referred to as liquid gold; the Laconic extra virgin olive oil with its amazing characteristics that are derived from the symphony of interchanging nature can be tasted and explored at our olive oil tasting seminars. Your group can experience within our organic farm, the process of picking olives, learning how olive oil is created, tasting different olive oils from the region as well learning why the Laconic olive oil is so special and sought after from around the world.
Olive Picking, Pressing for Olive Oil & Curing Olives
Join us this olive picking season in November & December and learn how to pick olives, make organic extra virgin olive oil and cure organic Kalamata olives. A visit to a local olive press, hot soups, fireplace and board games along with strolls in the vibrant nature of our farm.
Wine Tasting
Take a sip of the Peloponnese, taste, smell and feel the local Peloponnesian and Laconian grape varieties: Agiorgitiko, Mavroudi, Monemvasia, Kydonitsa, Asproudi. This experience starts with a leisurely walking tour in Eumelia’s vineyards during which you will learn about the local grape varieties, the homeodynamic agriculture, the vinification process and of course the wine history and culture of Greece. We then get to the terrace of the central building where the tasting takes place during sunset over the Taygetos mountain range. We uncork 5 of the most impressive locally produced wines and guide your palate to unknown flavors of the local grape varieties with a carefully selected assortment of savory delicacies.