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Life

03rd Jul 2019

This stunning Greek island will PAY you €6,000 to come live there

Your Mamma Mia fantasy come true.

Anna O'Rourke

Honey, honey…

If Mamma Mia looks like an instruction manual for life rather than a musical to you, you’ll like what you’re about to hear.

A picturesque Greek island is looking for new people to come and live there.

Antikythera, dotted between Crete and mainland Greece, wants to boost its population and is willing to make it worth your while to move.

New residents will be given a plot of land, a house and €500 a month.

Yep – you can get €6,000 a year to live like Amanda Seyfried in paradise.

Like other parts of Greece, Antikythera has suffered at the hands of the country’s ongoing financial crisis and emigration.

The island currently has just 20 residents and those living there are hoping that the offer will attract young families who’ll help to revitalise it.

Now, it’s worth noting that if you do head over it won’t be all synchronised dancing on the pier and duetting with Pierce Brosnan.

Antikythera is pretty hard to get to, something that has contributed to its decline.

There is a ferry between there and Crete but its sailings are often affected by the weather.

You’re also unlikely to meet many young people there, at first anyway.

“We are an island of pensioners, old men,” 62-year-old Vassals Aloizos, a man who lives there for part of the year, told the LA Times.

Still, Antikythera does have a few things going for it apart from how beautiful it is.

The island has its own power station and water source, making it fairly self-sustaining.

It’s also got a rich history and is a draw for lovers of archaeology as well as climate change scientists – the island is home to a new climate studies centre.

Four families have already been approved for moving but in characteristic Mediterranean fashion, there doesn’t seem to be much urgency about actually getting people on the island.

The selection and approval process for new residents can take up to five years, reports Insider, so don’t pack your bags just yet.