Discover how raw food, nutrition, yoga practice and creative expression awaken the essence of your soul!
Learn the secrets of how to prepare delicious raw food recipes from nutrition expert Esko and feel your body and mind rejuvenate.
Morning and evening yoga and mindfulness practice will further help you connect with your best Self, and creative explorations with Maria Paula Medina will help you unleash the artist in you.
All your senses will be in heaven relaxing in this stunning location, Urania Luxury Villas, with breath taking views, surrounded by unspoilt nature, sunshine and the crystal clear Ionian Sea.
Raw Food Workshop with Esko Koski-Laulaja
We will go on a journey into the world of natural foods, explore what impact the foods we choose to eat have on our mind-body-spirit and our planet, prepare recipes from locally grown seasonal vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and greens.
We explore flavours in healthy and creative ways, play with recipes and learn to create our own ...
Esko will demonstrate how to clean and prepare ingredients, how to make nuts and seeds more digestable, how to sprout seeds and grow your own salad on your kitchen window.
We will look into topics like:
- Life Force from the sun to our plates
- Nutrients for building life
- Health benefits of raw food
- Raw food vs cooked food
- Maintining the acid/alkaline balance
- What are enzymes in living foods
- The secrets of creating taste with 5 flavours
- The right mind set and the first bite
- Meditative eating
Come with an open mind and appetite, learn how to create your own conscious relationship with raw food.
Natural foods rejuvenate mind & body connection, promote emotional stability and happiness.
As our body begins to feel healthier, our sense of wellbeing and vitality increases.
Esko catered for us on our two retreats in Koufonisi and blew our minds with his delicious creations. The word around the table was "divine!" ... so we decided to take him with us to our favourite retreat in Lefkada to reveal his secrets ..
Born in Finland but living in Greece for 20 years now, Esko is passionate about raw food, vegan cuisine and nutrition. He is also a dedicated yogi and is continually exploring and studying ways to deepen awareness, consciousness and mindfulness.
On this retreat he will not only show us how to prepare divine meals, but also take us on journeys to discover our own healing voice.
Raw pasta with raw tomato and pesto sauce
Yoga and mindfulness will be part of our daily programme.
The physical practice of yoga asanas rejuventates the body, balances the mind
and helps to ignite the digestive fire 'agni'. The digestive system is our second brain, therefore a healthy gut is a healthy mind.
In our evening workshops we connect further with our creative side and promote self expression and flow.
Esko will be taking us on a journey through our voice and Paula will be teaching us various art techniques (see below).
Our voice it is the vibrational link to our emotional & spiritual bodies and is the main tool we use to communicate and transform feelings and states of being. Opening the voice in a natural and unharmful way is a beautiful musical experience as well as an invaluable tool for self-realization and spiritual awakening.
What our guests said about Esko's food:
"Excellent! Amazing! Blissful! Beautiful!" Niya, UK
"Fantastic! In perfect synergy with the yoga practice!" Valentina, Italy
"Divine! Every meal I'm in heaven!" Vanessa, UK
"The taste, colours, texture and vast knowledge and passion behind
the meals prepared was second to none - raw talent!" Anna, UK
Raw Food, Nutrition, Yoga and Creative Explorations
14 - 21 May 2017
with Esko Koski-Laulaja and Maria Paula Medina
Urania Luxury Villas Lefkada, Greece
Yoga and art with Maria Paula Medina
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Mindfulness morning flow yogic practices including pranayama, asana and relaxation.
The creative evening allows you to understand and experience the creative process inside your soul and teaches life lessons at the same time. This creative process brings you closer aligned with your heart and intuition.
A space to reflect on the experience of the day, finding the rhythm and the colours of your soul.
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Intuitive soul painting: a creative practice, experience, some techniques, colours dancing through the crayons and a way to create that can be easily brought into your daily life.
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Mexican Mandala art making: A God's eye is a yarn weaving and a spiritual object. The Ojo de Dios (Eye of God in Spanish) is woven with yarn and wood, often with several colours. The weaving of an Ojo de Dios is an ancient contemplative and spiritual practice for many indigenous peoples in the Americas.
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Dreamcatchers art making: originated from the Native American Ojibwa Tribe. Made with natural wood or branches, stones and feathers. According to popular belief its function is to filter people's dreams, allowing in only positive dreams and visions; nightmares are trapped in the account (stone) and the next morning burnt with daylight.
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Pranayama and intuitive moving meditation: to free the mind, the spirit and the body. Facilitating prana "vital energy" to flow freely in our body.
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Yoga nidra: "yogic sleep", a sleep-like state which yogis report to experience during their meditations. Yoga nidra, lucid sleeping is among the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness.
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Reflective and fun ways to get in touch with your Intuitive Soul.
Paula taught on our first Koufonisi retreat. Her free spirit shines through the moment you meet her.
Born in Argentina in 1983, yoga became part of Paula’s life at age 18. She studied visual arts in Argentina and Milan and explored trails throughout Latin America with the art project Latin American Pilgrimage (sound therapy and body movements). Paula became a yoga instructor at the age of 27. She has logged many hours of training in both Argentina and Europe, and specializes in therapeutic Hatha and Vinyasa styles of yoga.
Paula lives in the Dolomites where she teaches yoga and accompanies hiking and climbing groups. She has a great passion for mountain sports. When she is not guiding or teaching yoga, she spends all of her time rock climbing and ice climbing, as well as hiking with her dog Scott.
"Maria Paula is one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. Yoga was great!"
Donna, Australia
"Paula is beautiful and has a gorgeous, joyous energy!"
Niya, UK
Accommodation in luxury villas, 3 rooms per villa with private swimming pool and stunning seaviews:
Our accommodation: We will be staying at our favourite destination, Urania Villas, towering high over the sea, offering breathtaking views over Vasiliki bay and to Kefalonia and Ithaka. Luxury rooms with private bathrooms, some with jacuzzi, all with stunning sea views. Each villa has plenty of living space with a kitchen, a living room, terraces and its own swimmingpool. There is also a private beach reachable via a steep 300m path for the fit ones! Feel free to see Urania's own beautiful website.
Special discount for couples or friends booking together and sharing a room - € 1900 (£ 1585* = £ 792* each) for both instead of € 2296!
Rates:
€ 1445 (£ 1225*) for single occupancy LAST MINUTE OFFER for single room € 1295 (£ 1080*) click to book
€ 1148 (£ 975*) sharing a twin or double room LAST MINUTE OFFER for shared room €1098 (£ 916*) click to book
All rooms with private bathroom and seaviews.
​ (* £ price depending on conversion rate at time of payment.)
The price includes accommodation, breakfast, lunch and dinner at the villa, your yoga, art and nutrition workshops.
Does not include flights, transfers, excursions and meals out.
It is a condition of this holiday that each person has personal travel insurance appropriate to activity and fitness centred holidays and cover for travel expenses in case of cancellation.
How to get there: direct flights to Preveza from London Gatwick with Easyjet, Monarch and Thomas Cook and Thomson Airways, then we can arrange group transfer, you can share a taxi to the villas (about € 80) or you can hire your own car.
The drive from Preveza airport to the villas is 54 km and takes about 1 hour 10 minutes, no ferries.
Villa check in 4pm, check out 11am. Recommended arrival time in Preveza ealy afternoon, so you can team up with other participants for the transfer to the villa and arrive in time to settle in and relax before dinner.
What else?
The retreat offers opportunities to do other activities during your free time. You will have the chance to explore a wonderful private beach, located just underneath the villas. It is covered with small pearls and sand, has blue and turquoise colors, and it is a wonderful round-trip of 25-45 minutes (depending on the physical shape of the hiker) beneath the olive trees and the lush greenery of the hill. Even if you don’t have the chance to hike down to the beach, the superb views will relax and renew your spirits.
If you are lucky enough, you will spot dolphins swimming in the water. The area belongs to the environmental protection network Nature 2000, because it is a habitat for dolphins and seals.
-Water sports activities
The island of Lefkada hosts numerous water sports and activities such as scuba diving, boating, kite surfing, kite boarding, surfing, and more. These activities can be discovered in Vassiliki bay just three and a half kilometers from the villas. Vassiliki bay is also famous for hosting windsurfing tournaments and practitioners from all over the world!
-Lefkada beaches
Lefkada has three world class beaches, Porto Katsiki, Egremnoi and Kathisma! Porto Katsiki and Egremnoi are easily accessible after a 15 minutes drive. Starting from the northwest coast you will meet Kathisma, a 3 kilometers wide sandy popular bay. After a stunning journey through pine and olive trees you will cross Egremnoi, a beach a little hard to reach, because of the 300 steps staircase, but once you reach the bottom of it, the sight will compensate every bit of your sweat! Finally, further down you will meet Porto Katsiki, the most famous beach of the island.
Sample programme (to give you an idea, but this is flexible):
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7am: Sunrise sound meditation
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7:30am: Morning yoga
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9am: Healthy delicious breakfast
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After breakfast nutrition workshops and preparing raw lunch together with our raw food artist Esko who will let us in to his secrets of creating absolutely divine food.
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After lunch free time for you to relax by the pool or on the private beach and enjoy the breath taking views.
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On a couple of days we will venture out to the world's most beautiful beaches Porto Katsiki and Egremni.
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5:30 pm: Afternoon yoga practice
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7:30 Dinner at the villa.
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After dinner: awakening the creative life force within: with voice healing - opening the heart sound, yoga nidra, mandala making art workshops ...