Breakfast Is the Part of the Day I Like Best

Eight until half past ten, in the courtyard under the fig tree, or in the front room when it rains. Included in every room, every day.

What Is on the Table, and Where It Comes From

I start at seven. The first thing I do is walk to the bakery at the end of the lane, which opens at half past seven, and I am usually the second person there, after a man who has bought the same loaf every morning for longer than we have had the house. I take two loaves of the bread with sesame on top, and whatever koulouria are left from the first tray.

The oranges come from my cousin's grove outside Argos, twenty minutes away, and she brings a crate every Thursday. They are squeezed at twenty to eight, not earlier, because orange juice that has stood for an hour tastes of the fridge, and not later, because the first guests come down at eight and I want the jug full when they do. In April the oranges are at their sweetest. By September they are from the late trees and sharper, and some people like those better.

The honey is thyme honey from the hills behind the town, from a beekeeper who sells it from the back of his van at the Saturday market. The yoghurt is sheep's yoghurt, thick enough to stand a spoon in, and it comes with the honey and walnuts, or with whatever fruit is good that week: cherries in June, figs from our own tree in August, grapes in September.

Eggs are cooked as you like them, which in practice means Kostas cooks them, because he is better at it and enjoys being asked. There are tomatoes and cucumber from the market, olives, a hard cheese and a soft one, and bread from the bakery toasted on the grill pan if you want it warm.

And there is one cake, which changes every day, because I bake it the evening before and I get bored. Orange cake, of course, more often than anything else. Walnut cake with syrup. A lemon and olive oil cake. A plain sponge for the children, who never eat it, and the parents, who always do. If you stay a week you will not see the same cake twice, and if you stay two you will start to have opinions, and that is fine.

The coffee is Greek coffee if you want it, made in the small pot, or filter coffee in a big jug, or espresso from a machine Kostas guards like a child. Tea is loose, and there is mountain tea from the hills for anyone who asks.

Eleni

When and Where

• Breakfast8:00 to 10:30
• In fine weatherThe courtyard
• When it rainsThe front room
• Leaving earlyAsk the night beforeWe leave bread, fruit and a flask on the hall table. Breakfast itself never starts before eight, because the bakery opens at half past seven.

Tell us when you write if anyone eats no meat, no dairy or no gluten, and there will be something on the table for them every morning. The booking page lists everything else to put in that first email.