Named for a wind that goes east

Gregale — il-grigal in Maltese — is the north-east wind. It is the one that has always come to Malta from the direction of Greece, and the one Maltese sailors have read for centuries. We took the name because the whole idea points that way: ninety minutes east, into a country most people only half see.

Gregale began with a familiar frustration. Summer at home had become something to endure — heat, traffic, crowded coast, restaurants coasting on demand. Greece was close enough to be an answer, but the version on offer was a hotel booking and a hope.

So we built the other version. Trips designed entirely around one party, using the access you only get from being there: the guide who can open a site early, the house with twelve rooms that never appears on an aggregator, the skipper who tells you the truth about which cove is empty.

The second promise is the harder one — flawlessness. Every hotel is stayed in before it is recommended. Every road is driven. Transfers are already waiting; ferries are rebooked before you notice a delay. If something goes wrong, you have a number in Greece that answers, and it is not a call centre.

And we do not treat Greece as a summer country. From November the mountains are the point: Parnassos above Delphi, the black-pine slopes of Vasilitsa, the gorges of Zagori running cold and green. Four seasons, done with the same care.