By Daniela Toporek
Private tours, live concerts and “undiscovered” sites: all this is promised for an upcoming trip to Greece with the Ponte Vedra Beach Cultural Center, in partnership with New York-based luxury travel agency Thalassa Journeys.
The Center hosted a luncheon on December 19 to discuss the trip with potential travelers, with special guest Lacy Marx, sales director of Thalassa Journeys.
To taste a bit of Greece at home, a table of Greek delights, including stuffed grape leaves and hummus with pita and spanakopita, was served.
“The food there is like nothing I’ve ever tasted,” Marx said before his presentation. “The tomatoes were ripe and juicy and had that distinctive flavor. I felt like if I bit into it it would explode in my mouth.
Marx said she made her first trip to Greece last year. “It’s very diverse,” she said of the popular tourist destination. “It’s very mountainous in places. They have volcanic islands, but they also have islands filled with vegetation. It's very rich and absolutely beautiful.
The 12-day trip, which will take place in the fall of this year, is open to the public. Scheduled for September 29 to October 12, it will feature several cities that are normally off the beaten tourist map, including Thessaloniki, Larissa, Volos, Skiathos and more.
The trip will include historical insights, museums, archaeological masterpieces, natural beauties and music. Internationally renowned chamber musicians will accompany the group and perform intimate performances at private historic sites.
To top it all off, Helen Events, curator of Byzatine art at the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York, will be the expert guest speaker on the trip.
“She is well known, respected and won the Armenian President's Friendship Award for her work and presenting Armenians in such a wonderful light, thereby contributing to the development of Armenian-American relations,” Marx said.
“We went to Italy for our first trip,” Jennifer Jordan, the Cultural Center's director of community relations, said of a previous tour hosted by the cultural center. “It was a small group, but afterwards we heard a lot of our guests say, 'If only we had known sooner…' so now we're trying to inform them.
Donna Guzzo, executive director of the Center, said trips with her guarantee a little spontaneity, but good times.
“Some of us ended up at (luxury shoe designer) Salvatore Ferragamo’s house,” she said, remembering their Italian escapades. “Some of us had dinner and visited the restaurant (Ferragamo). They closed it to the public. It was just us. They weren't really planned during the trip, so you never know when you're traveling with Donna!
For more information on the “Treasures of Greece” trip and the Ponte Vedra Beach Cultural Center, visit www.ccpbb.org. To learn more about Thalassa travel, visit www.thalassajourneys.com.
