'I immediately know when I get out of the car whether it has the magic feeling or not'

My first proper holiday was a Greek island hopping trip around the Cyclades islands nearly 30 years ago with my future wife Eimer.

I have loved everything about that country ever since from the simple and delicious food (I eat Greek salads there every day) to the open and friendly people, to the ancient history and the spectacular beaches and the endless, glorious sunshine.

I returned to the islands a few years ago when our children were old enough to island hop and it was a great holiday, but the islands were very busy compared to that first trip.

It is something of a travel cliché to say you have discovered a place that is like the Greece of 30 years ago, but perhaps I have found that place on my trip this summer to the Halkidiki peninsulas in the Macedonian region of northern Greece.

The Halkidiki region is made up of three peninsulas or fingers coming out of mainland northern Greece and this area has something for all types of travellers.

The first finger is called Kassandra and is the most developed for tourism with glitzy hotels and huge nightclubs that would give Ibiza a run for its money.

The middle finger is Sithonia which is less developed with some of the best secluded beaches in Greece and the third finger is Mount Athos which is an independent theocracy called the holy mountain and considered the holiest site in the Orthodox church.

My ideal place is a small fishing village with a crescent shaped soft white sand beach protected by a sheltered cove and surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains.

The village is small enough to have very few tourists but big enough to have a few fish restaurants you don’t mind going back to again and again.

This is a place where the locals working in the shop, café or restaurant start to recognise you.

The last piece of the jigsaw is accommodation with a pool for the kids but also a few minutes’ walk from the beach and the village.

And as we are a family of six, it would ideally have apartments rather than rooms and finally be reasonably priced. I don’t ask for too much really!

But I found that place at the very end of the stunning Sithonia peninsula at my new favourite place called the Porto Koufo Resort.

Porto Koufo is a perfect horseshoe shaped deep cove, the deepest in the Mediterranean, surrounded by hills covered in fragrant pine trees situated around two hours’ drive from Thessaloniki airport which is a new Ryanair route from Dublin.

I always check the new Ryanair routes every year as they offer great value and new destinations that are generally off the beaten track for Irish tourists.

I didn’t hear one other Irish accent over our two weeks holiday in Halkidiki and if, like me, you think this is a good thing then this is the holiday for you.

When I first arrive at a new place, I immediately know when I get out of the car whether it has the “magic” feeling or not. It is a feeling of calmness and peace.

When we arrived and got out of the car the only sound I could hear was the constant chorus of cicadas calling out in the sweltering afternoon heat.

After a few days I asked the Porto Koufo Resort owner Kostas could he explain the magic of the place and he summed it up poetically as: “We are a U-shaped cove surrounded by the stone covered mountains.

I believe the stones have absorbed the energy of the beautiful times we have spent here, and this can be transmitted and felt by the people visiting here”.

We spent an idyllic couple of days at Porto Koufo. The daily routine was an early morning swim as an old pickup truck with loudspeakers attached went up and down the track by the beach hailing the fresh fruit for sale.

Our kids started to join us once they heard about the beach shack with fresh orange juice and the biggest, tastiest donuts they have ever eaten.

I’d have a strong, thick, syrupy Greek coffee, which is apparently better for your digestion than regular coffee.

Then it was back to the pool for more swims followed by afternoons in the shade reading and resting and finally an early evening adventure trip.

We got to know the owners Irene, Kostas and their son Harry who give great tips for day trips all within ten minutes’ drive, like the Ethnik Brazilian style beach bar.

Kostas would give elaborate directions like when he recommended the palm covered beach huts at Tigania beach, which looked like a Thai beach bar, “Turn right at the female pine tree (round as opposed to cone shaped) at the crossroads to a labyrinth of dirt tracks.

Then take a left after the bridge that goes nowhere and then if you go through a herd of goats you are going the right way. The water is turquoise like the Maldives”.

This was a retrain I heard many times, and it made me wonder, do people in the Maldives say the water is emerald just like Greece?

We got great restaurant recommendations like the Porto Marina restaurant on the waterfront where the owner brought me into the kitchen and opened an ice filled stainless steel drawer to pick a fresh Scorpion fish caught that morning.

It was the best fish sauce I have ever tasted.

Kostas shared his own lunch of spaghetti and shellfish one day with my kids whilst telling stories of how the Porto Koufo cove was used to hide ships to defeat the ancient Persian fleet at the nearby town of Tirana, which was the first capital of ancient Greece.

He told us how the German U boats used the cove’s deep waters to hide during the Second World War.

For me travel is about gaining knowledge, learning about history, language, culture and people and to discover and appreciate new foods, experiences and places and from that to learn more about yourself and hopefully be more open minded.

We got to share a drink with the owners Irene and Kostas by the pool at the end of each evening and they shared their story of how their property had originally been their family holiday home and how they converted it into an aparthotel out of necessity when their many businesses in Athens were severely affected by the last recession like many other Greek entrepreneurs.

Their story is the Greek story of resilience.

They have poured all their love into their hotel and it shows.

They make their own wine and olive oil from their vines and olive trees and the garden is full of perfumed bright pink Oleander flowering shrubs and fruit laden trees of oranges, peaches, lemons and sweet figs.

Kostas used to cut strips from his aloe vera trees to soothe my kids’ skin after long days in the sun.

Kostas summed up the three peninsulas of Halkidiki as thus: “You go to the first finger to find your wife, the second to holiday with her and the third to get away from her”.

The base for the third finger is the town of Ouranopoli and I’ll write more about that next week.

For more information on Porto Koufo Resort go to https://portokouforesort.com.