Now, I like to think I’m pretty open-minded. I’ve dabbled in yoga, floatation tanks, Buddhist meditation, neuro-linguistic programming and Mongolian overtoning among other consciousness-tweaking activities, and I’ve had fun with them all. But I’m also, Skyros swiftly taught me, an alienated, paranoid and chronically Anglo-Saxon stress puppy. With potential.As my departure approached late last summer for Atsitsa Bay on an obscure Greek island, which for the last 28 years has offered a roster of activities and ‘personal development’ courses, earning it the nickname ‘Therapy Island’, the prospect of joining what the bumpf described as Atsitsa’s ‘symbolic community’ triggered an unnerving, unpredictable schizoid tic. ‘You can engage in the kind of courses, activities and conversations that will open your heart, expand your mind, recharge your body and inspire your imagination,’ said the website, while I bounced between wide-eyed anticipation of a mind and body MOT in the sun and sweaty terror of a New Age orgy of hugging and sharing.

For the first 36 hours of the trip, nothing was getting a workout except my tic. On the coach which took this week’s Skyrian influx from Athens airport to the downtown hotel where we would spend the first night, the ardent exchanges between strangers all around me about their hopes and dreams for the coming week sounded either a), courageously uninhibited and sincere, or, b), the gushings of wannabe cult victims. Many were simply looking for a back-to-basics retreat in a tranquil natural setting, others planned to learn something new – sailing, massage or dance – and some had come specifically to tackle painful emotional issues, whether on a full-on therapy course or by rediscovering a lost love of painting, or singing. Finding at check-in that I was sharing a basic room with two other guys travelling alone I found it, possibly, a), refreshingly unfussy, or, maybe, b), a monstrous invasion of the personal space you fight or die for in London.

A series of short coach and ferry journeys broken by a delicious lunch of just-caught seafood on a beach, the next day was spent mostly, a), in stilted but friendly small-talk with fellow campers, or, at times,  b), repressing an urge to scream obscenities or laugh maniacally in some earnest face. But I also noticed I was spending an unusual amount of time just flat-out laughing, perhaps never more so than when our ferry approached Skyros island’s tiny harbour to the local taverna’s customary greeting – a full-blast rendition over the PA of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra (that epic theme from 2001).

The Skyros experience proper kicked off the next morning. At the ringing of a gong, the 40-odd participants filed into the Magic Circle, a breezy roofed space, its floor’s yin/yang paint job polished by many thousand yogic buttocks, overlooking the turquoise- and indigo-striped Aegean. My tic played nice during the larky name games and group rub-ups with which we all ‘introduced ourselves’, and even during the grunting, pumping Shamanic warm-up moves yoga teacher Susie led us through – ‘to root us to the earth and connect with its energy’. After the course, teachers talked us through our options.I chose yoga in the mornings, windsurfing in the afternoons, and Judy’s Mindful Movement for my pre-breakfast livener. And mindful of my journalistic duty to get to the heart of the Skyros concept, I also signed up for all the optional activities designed to make a family of us all – Oekos group, when a random group of six or so meet daily to ‘truly communicate’, and co-listening, where two people meet ‘to practise talking, and listening’. And vegetable chopping.
Panic struck moments later, when life coach Helen took the floor. ‘A lot of people have been saying to me, yeah? Yeah?’ she said, sounding uncannily like David Brent, ‘... Helen, y’know, when’s this holiday going to, like, really get going, yeah? Well... fasten your safety belts!’ (Surely not.) ‘Make sure your seat is in the upright position, yeah?!’ (She wouldn’t.) ‘’Cos we’re about to take off!’ In my brain, a) and b) collided at last – ‘Mate, scarper’.

But whether I liked it or not, within 24 hours, my Skyros tic had been rested, fed, massaged, chanted and, yes, hugged into a contented corpse position by some intangible combined effect of activity, company, intense relaxation and much, much more laughter. All the sharing was a bit painful at first (yes, Mr Freud, I’m aware that I was experiencing feeling threatened), but with the communal unclenching came easy communication, generous good humour and an infectious, almost childlike excitement. When after all, do you get the chance post-childhood to spend spontaneous, carefree days learning cool new stuff, chilling out outdoors for long hours at a time, and getting excellent home-cooked meals dished up three times a day? And all in a stunning secluded bay fringed by pine-forested hills and craggy cliffs in full-beam Grecian sunshine.Bad luck meant the windsurf crew spent a becalmed week staring enviously from our boards at the progress of sea urchins under the glassy water, but my spine was all but purring from the Pilates, tai chi and Alexander technique moves Judy put it through first thing every morning. Blissfully energising too were the two-hour yoga sessions in which our insanely charismatic, top-knotted guru Michael (surely the inspiration for Genie in Disney’s Aladdin) combined expert tuition for a wide range of abilities with a surreal line in quick-fire improv humour – ‘sometimes it’s useful to know that bums can do more than make your pants look real nice’.

Don’t mistake Atsitsa for an active or sports destination as such. There are heaps of things you can learn or improve here – the two centres on Skyros and other destinations in Thailand, Cambodia and Cuba together offer 150 courses – but to go to Atsitsa expecting a geared-up, high-tech adventure holiday where you’re absolutely guaranteed your choice of courses would miss the point. At Atsitsa it’s all, as they say, about the taking part, and the emphasis is firmly off competitive edge and on have-a-go fun. Tuition was excellent and delivered with charm, and the tutors were friendly, accessible, and surprisingly up-for-it, rubbing shoulders with the participants even when the going got Bacchanalian.And the after-dark action was surprisingly fresh. While organised activities from drumming (read bogling) sessions to a stargazing walk to a particularly rambunctious night out in a bar in Skyros town generally started proceedings, evenings (mine anyway) unfailingly ended in Atsitsa’s little bar, dancing like a loony to funk/salsa/house/Peruvian nose-flute techno on a vine-covered terrace. Unless, of course, it was a skinnydipping night.

You can head to Skyros for a weepy emotional rebirth, a feel-good physical tune-up or even to swerve the hippie-dom and soak up some supremely peaceful solitude. For me at least there was something radical simply in spending uncomplicated days with new people whose age, background and status could barely be less relevant, and being completely supported in doing exactly what I chose to pursue. Some of my secret resistance stayed true long after I crossed over to the other side – I’d check in with it and other cynics now and then for a beer and a few cheap happy-clappy gags, if nothing else so that I’d remember how to be a Londoner when I got back home.My own moment in the symbolic community was so transformative that when Helen/David Brent, by now my frequent partner in amateur ballroom stylings in the bar, asked this horribly self-conscious performance-phobe to give her a twirl in the climactic last-night cabaret, I not only saw her rumba, but raised her a Bus Stop, choreographing a (shambolic, admittedly) ’70s disco line-dancing sketch which turned the site briefly into a riotous conga mosh pit. Skyros fever? I’m in.




Getting there
Rupert Mellor travelled with easyJet, which offers return flights to Athens from London Gatwick and London Luton with prices from £31.99 one-way (incl. taxes) and return from £67.15 (incl. taxes). To book, visit www.easyJet.com or call 0905 821 0905.


Staying there/activities
With two centres on Skyros, (Atsitsa, the active one, and the Skyros centre, the brainy one, with a particularly well-regarded writers’ course) and others in Koh Chang, Thailand (the five-star spa one), Cambodia (the artsy one), and Cuba (the salsa one), Skyros Holidays offers 150 courses in everything from canoeing, windsurfing and sailing, to bushcraft, flirting, tantra and ecstatic dance, in pristine, natural surroundings.Atsitsa sessions of one and two weeks offer a changing roster of courses and cost between £485 and £995 per person which covers all courses, accommodation and most meals. Transfers, flights and optional extra trips and activities offered by Skyros Holidays are not included.
www.skyros.co.uk , 020 7267 4424

Families with children are welcomed during the summer holidays.

More info
Visit www.gnto.gr or call 0207 495 9330