Authenticity & Ronia

About Authenticity

Authenticity is a small island-based activity project in Sifnos, created and run by me, Ronia. It grew naturally out of my work with Sifnos Events, the company I started in 2004 to organise tailor-made weddings, baptisms, parties and special events on the island.

For many years, alongside the ceremonies and celebrations, I was also designing private activities and tours for travellers: cooking in my home, walking food tours, cultural hiking, dancing lessons, pottery visits and island tours by car. At some point these experiences needed their own “home” – a place focused only on meeting travellers in small groups and sharing everyday life on the island with them.

This is why I created Authenticity: to give more space and attention to these private and small-group experiences. Sifnos Events continues to exist and takes care of larger events and ceremonies. Authenticity is dedicated to the activities you see on this website.

Living on Sifnos all year round means that I do not look at the island only through the summer season. Local knowledge – about the weather, the small businesses, the quiet times, the practical limitations – helps me find realistic solutions for each group and to suggest ideas that make sense for you and for the island.

Over the years I have worked with people from all over the world, of different ages, religions and backgrounds, with very different expectations and wishes for their holidays. What stays the same is the way I like to present the island: not as a list of “must see – must do” items, but through stories, everyday details and conversation.

For each activity I am the one who plans and usually the one who hosts you. When a boat, a driver, a potter or another specialist is needed, I work with a small circle of professionals selected because they know the island deeply and respect its rhythm. One of us is always close at hand to answer questions and solve anything that might come up.

About me – Ronia Anastasiadou

My story

Born and brought up in Athens, I always wanted to be a journalist and I was lucky enough to study it and work from a young age in newspapers and on the radio. It was great, but I could not stand the hustle and bustle of city life forever. So, in 1994 I quit my beloved job, totally changed my life and moved to Sifnos.

My mother comes from the island. I had spent all the Easters and summers of my life here and this was where I felt I could find what I called “real life”. For about ten years I kept changing jobs – from waitress to travel agent and from English teacher to bank clerk. At the same time, I learned a lot about folk dancing, traditional cooking, home-made herbal medicine, trails, religious habits and customs, and I realised that there is always a reason behind everything people do.

In 2004 I decided to start my own work, combining all the small details that made me come to the island and all the reasons that made me stay. This is how Sifnos Events was born, together with further training in guiding and heritage interpretation, certifications, seminars and programmes in order to get the qualifications I needed.

After many years of organising events, guiding and cooking with travellers, I felt that the activities themselves deserved their own name and space. Authenticity is that space – a place where I can focus on small groups, personal contact and the everyday side of Sifnos, while Sifnos Events continues to take care of weddings and other big celebrations.

Since the beginning, I have been grateful to work for the happy moments in people’s lives, trying to make them meaningful and memorable. I truly believe that happiness, living conditions and quality in our life are more in our hands than we usually think.

The way I see things...

Cultural and Natural Heritage is all around us. It is on the dry stone walls and the buildings, the plants and the land, the way people behave towards each other, the relationship with time and weather, the effect of the sea and the water around us.

Cultural and natural heritage is on an old wooden gate and on the dovecotes, it is inside the Sunday chickpea soup and close to an ancient tower, it is in songs and dances and religious celebrations and also in myths, legends and stories.

Sifnos – like all islands – is not just sea and sun. It is not just the “must see” and “must do” list you need in order to “tick” the island. It is not enough to hear about history, monuments, names and dates. The awarded archaeological site of the island is more interesting if it is connected to the ancient towers and their communication system, the protected NATURA area, the characteristics we share with our ancient ancestors, and Christianity with its churches often built on the same spots as the temples of the 12 ancient gods.

A trekking tour is even better when you can recognise, smell and touch the wise medicinal herbs, when you hear the bells of sheep and the stories about these bells and these animals, when you discover how creative people were before technology and how they managed to live in the environment and not only from the environment.

You get to know a place if you meet locals in their everyday life, if you see how a home is, if you hear the small stories that build History, if you taste local food and drinks, if you try to feel the local pace and the reasons behind it, if you listen to the sounds of nature, if you feel the island with all your senses.

Interpretation of Natural and Cultural Heritage is the technique and the idea behind the philosophy of Authenticity (and Sifnos Events). It is the best way I have found to make you love my island and to hear you promise that you will come again.

Looking forward to introducing you to the islanders’ way!