Christine Murfitt-Varzakakos lives in Aegina, Greece with her husband George, a native of the island who she married in 2019.
“I fell for Aegina’s charm, so in 2017 I bought a holiday house there and planned on two summers; half the year in Australia and the other half in Aegina, I thought! But I fell even more in love with Aegina realising an inner connection in my heart, as I was born in Lakes Entrance, Victoria, Australia where my father worked on fishing boats, so I always felt at home around boats. Aegina felt like coming home,” Christine says.
“We have a saying in Aegina, ‘if it gets up your skin, you’re gone.’ Though I had a wonderful 33-year marriage to a very good man with whom I have two beautiful boys now in their mid-30’s, I wanted desperately to live in Greece. So, I made a decision to start a new life in Aegina on my own.
“My life in Sydney had been good, but it was the first chapter of my life. Working initially in the banking sector there wasn’t fulfilling so I decided to study. I’d always been interested in alternative therapies, and in 2000 I opened my business in massage for a local physiotherapist and soon it became a clinic with like-minded therapists. I qualified as a herbalist, homoeopath and naturopath, owning and managing two clinics. Then I added counselling. Soon after I met astrologers so I studied that too, leading to managing conferences with international speakers both in Australia and internationally. All in all, I studied for 12 years.
“It was tough to leave but for me at 53, it was time for a change. So, returning to Australia in 2017 after having set up the Aegina house, I felt very unsettled and knew I needed to return – to live in Aegina.”
Christine relates how she always felt an affinity to Greece.
“On a holiday at Mornington Beach, Melbourne with girlfriends when I was 18, I ended up distraught, sitting alone on the beach due to a falling out with one of the girls. There, I was befriended by a young man George, who cheered me up by introducing me to his family and cousins! There was so much warmth and hospitality at their house; in their attitudes… and I married a George!” she tells me with her eyes lighting up.
As for chapter two of Christine’s life, she asserts, “I greatly miss my family and friends and now I have a granddaughter. I miss her but I know when we are together, I spend weeks and weeks with her so I am truly blessed for those special moments.”
“In Aegina I have been successfully managing six holiday accommodations on the island, while now my plans are to rekindle my passion for astrology and start teaching, consulting and planning retreats again… I am also now married to a gorgeous Greek man and we share a happy life here in Aegina. Not for one day do I regret my decision. The second chapter of my life is totally fulfilling and I know I live in paradise. I’m grateful for that.”
Greek families are so helpful
Artist Sue MacDougall first arrived in Aegina in 1973. From New Zealand (considered Down-Under too), Sue has also spent time in Australia.
“I’ve visited Australia many times and lived in Perth, Western Australia when I was 20. I’ve just come back from a Sydney biennale trip with my local art gallery as one of 16 art lovers on this amazing trip. So, for me, I find Australians and New Zealanders very much the same, especially in the art world and lifestyles,” Sue says.
Sue’s early life in Aegina included marriage to a local man, two sons, and then a divorce 10 years later, leading her back to NZ.
“I married there at a tough time in Greek history – during the dictatorship; a massive shock to me coming from such a free democratic country like NZ,” she explains.
Before leaving Greece back then, she was “helping other ex-pat women get themselves and their children out of Greece so it was impossible for me to stay there divorced as I knew what others were going through. Borders would get closed to them leaving, especially with their children.”
Once back in NZ she describes: “I got back into my art practice by taking many art courses in NZ and London, with some funding from the NZ Government… then got a high-powered management position.”
Of this difficult time as an artist and single mother, Sue tells me: “Here in NZ (as in Australia) there has always been some government assistance for my situation. There was nothing like that in Greece – even today. That is why the Greek families are so helpful in many ways.”
“My Greek family was warm and welcoming to me… From my mother-in-law I learnt to collect caper leaves and pods to pickle, to make homemade bread in her outside oven and to collect olives. She taught me to cook Greek food with a cup of this or a handful of that. No measuring at all and it always turned out yummy,” she adds.
Although Sue’s marriage had ended, it was in the last 20 years after a family tragedy that she re-established “excellent relations” with her Aegina family.
“I lived in my mother-in-law’s small stone house. Every time it rained I didn’t have enough pots or buckets to catch the rain coming through the roof. It had an outside toilet but no shower, hot water etc. My sister-in-law had put in one garden tap in the very small kitchen for water,” she reminisces.
“There was no loaning of money back then from banks etc. so we saved and saved to build our own home on a piece of land that my Greek husband had inherited from his mother close by to everyone else in the village.”
All the while continuing her art, Sue adds, “I exhibited in Aegina township and mostly over in the UK and Italy too. In 2015, I exhibited my painting as I represented New Zealand for the 100-year anniversary ‘Red Exhibition Of WWI – Gallipoli’ at Thessaloniki and Lemnos Island, Greece.”
“My future goals are to hold my Art Retreats every September in Aegina to bring people to visit Greece, showing them ‘my Greece’, not a tourist Greece and my love for Greece. I do regard my heart is in two countries, as I have very strong ties with my Greek family which I do regard as my family.”
‘Always knew I’d end up in Greece’:
Desiree Opiat Prinsloo, an artist, lives in Hydra for half of the year, and Australia in the other six months where her two daughters and grand-daughter reside. Originally from South Africa, and widowed 10 years ago, Desiree moved to Australia in her 20’s in 1986
“I moved to Sydney by default for political reasons, but always knew I’d end up in Greece,” she says.
Of her first time in Greece in 1982, she recalls, “it was life-changing for me. That’s why I kept coming back. I opened the shutters of my hotel, and the sea and sunshine hit me in the soul. It’s so abstract, I can’t explain it. Greece’s history, archaeology and mythology draw me like a magnet. I’m witness to an ancient yet advanced culture.”
Impassioned, she continues, “Mythology is everywhere. I know an Agamemnon, and he’s like a king; a Sophocles and he’s a philosopher. And as for the ancient temples and healing Asclepieions, my Greek uncle and his wife – my aunt originally from South Africa – lived in Aegina for decades near the ancient temple of Aphaia. Now both deceased, he lived till he was 106 as did his mother, and my aunt lived well into her 90’s. I believe it was due to the energy fields permeating that area.”
Desiree’s paintings are currently being exhibited at the Melina Mercouri Centre in Hydra, while her work is also currently on show at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens, Centenary of Water Colours exhibition. Internationally known, Desiree’s work can also be found in Australia, NZ, South Africa, Europe, the UK and Mexico. Furthermore, a finalist of the prestigious Dough Moran art prize, Desiree has contributed to art related magazines, as well as featured in the Saronic Islands publication and in Greece’s Aegean Airline magazine ‘Blue.’
She tells me that she wishes to leave a legacy in Hydra.
“I actually live close to the house of the famous Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnson, as well as to Leonard Cohen. Coincidentally, in Sydney I live a few streets from Charmian Cliff’s now 80-year-old daughter who I know, and to whom I gifted my painting of her famous mother’s house.”
Desiree paints, teaches and exhibits in her two studios in Hydra and Sydney, apart from enjoying the best of both her home countries.
“As an artist I find living in two contrasting countries – young Australia and ancient yet modern Greece, enormously exciting,” she says.
“Australia has order and structure, wide open spaces, enormous horizons and a rich colour palette. People are generally reserved and conservative, their demeanor understated.
“Greece has a sense of great freedom about it. I love that the Greek people are passionate, gregarious and natural philosophers. Conversations easily fall into deep and wise content. The beautiful cool grey and blue palette of the wider landscape and islands are a subtle and poetic contrast to Australia’s rich variety of reds. I am truly blessed as an artist.”
