Official Website of Author & Awarded Luxury Travel Curator
Anastasia Vasileiou is a Greek author, luxury travel curator and host whose work is rooted in mythology, heritage, travel and the transformative power of experience.
Born and raised in Crete, Anastasia grew up surrounded by the stories, landscapes and traditions that would later become a profound influence on both her writing and her work in travel.
With a background in Classical Studies and a lifelong fascination with Greek mythology and the ancient world, she speaks five languages, including Modern and Ancient Greek, English, French and Italian.
For more than twenty-five years, she worked within some of the world's most discerning luxury travel houses, dividing her life between Greece and the United Kingdom. In 2016, she returned permanently to Greece, a decision that became a defining turning point in her life.
She went on to establish The Greek Gourmet Tours, an award-winning luxury travel company creating private and hosted small-group journeys in Greece and beyond. Her signature The Journey Within Collection brings together culture, mythology, gastronomy, wellness and meaningful human connection, inviting travelers to experience a destination not simply as a place to visit, but through its stories, traditions and deeper sense of place.
Her first novel, Beneath the Northern Crown, grew from many of the same themes that have shaped her life: the enduring power of mythology, the mysteries of memory, the wounds we carry, and the possibility of returning to ourselves.
Whether through a story or a journey, Anastasia's intention remains the same: to create experiences that awaken curiosity, inspire reflection and remind us to live more fully in the present moment.
She believes that the most meaningful journeys are rarely about how far we travel. They are about what we discover along the way and who we become when we return.
The book at a glance
Knossos Palace, Crete
An ancient myth. An eternal love.
Two souls who refused to be lost to time.
Ariadne, a celebrated ballerina in New York, has devoted her life to dance. Yet beyond the stage, an inexplicable emptiness seems to follow her. When a new professional opportunity takes her to England, a journey to Crete with her beloved sister, Faye, becomes the beginning of a mysterious inner quest.
Among the ancient paths of Knossos and the waters of the Aegean, Ariadne begins to sense that something from the past is calling to her. Dreams, visions, and inexplicable memories draw her ever closer to a story that seems to have been written centuries ago.
On the island of Naxos, she meets Denis, a charismatic Russian composer. The attraction between them is immediate, strangely familiar, as though they are meeting for the very first time, and yet have known each other forever.
As the present begins to intertwine with an ancient myth, Ariadne is forced to look deeper into her own soul.
What does the heart remember when the mind has forgotten?
Can love survive through time?
And could some encounters be not coincidences, but returns?
Beneath The Northern Crown is a mystical novel of love, primordial memory, reincarnation, and the extraordinary power of the soul to return to where it belongs.
The Journey Within Experience
Travel is not simply about where we go. It is about what we awaken along the way.
The Journey Within Collection was created from my belief that the most meaningful journeys take us beyond sightseeing.
They invite us to slow down, become curious, connect with a culture, share a table, listen to stories and perhaps discover something within ourselves.
Each journey is carefully curated around a theme, a feeling or a question, combining beautiful places with authentic experiences, thoughtful hosting and time simply to be.
These are journeys designed not only to be remembered, but to be felt.
Anastasia Vasileiou
Author of Beneath The Northern Crown & Awarded Host for Small Group Journeys in Greece and Worldwide.