In July 1974, the world-renowned German actress and famous for her beauty Romy Schneider visited Damouhari for holidays and was hosted in Ghermaniko traditional hotel. She is known as “Princess Sissy” for her starring role in the trilogy regarding the life of Empress Elizabeth of Bavaria, filmed in the mid-1950s.
A wealthy life full of emotions
Romy (Rosemary) Schneider was born in Vienna, Austria in September 1938, grew up in a family of actors and died at the age of 43 in Paris (in May 1982). She began her career at the age of 15 in Germany playing in many classic films of the time and continued her career in France with a short passage from Hollywood.
In 1958 she met the famous French actor Alain Delon, to whom she got engaged, but they divorced five years later. Since then, Romy has been married twice, acquiring with her first marriage a son called David and with the second a daughter called Sarah.
The tragic death of her son in June 1981 at the age of 13 from an accident in their home garden shocked her deeply. Her shock resulted in her hospitalization in a psychiatric clinic in Paris and a year later, on the 30th of May 30, she committed suicide at home with an overdose of barbiturate pills and alcohol.
The pleasure trip to Damouchari
Romy Schneider arrives in Damouchari with a donkey from Aghios Ioannis, a nearby seaside village. She was accompanied by her beloved son, David, 7 years old at the time and 11 women who followed her. They were the staff who guarded, protected and cared for her and the child. They all stayed together in Ghermaniko for about one month. Somewhen in the meantime, a man was coming to see if they were missing or were in need of something. Every morning, after having breakfast in the old hotel’s yard, they enjoyed the sea and the sun at Palia Damouhari beach. It was all theirs because the tourists and locals had disappeared due to the military outburst of the Cyprus issue at that time.
Every night, Romy and the rest of the women gathered for dinner at the village’s only tavern. The “Princess Sissy” was gorgeous and striking and her behavior very simple and modest, as the locals that were there usually point out. She always wore, all day long, a turban in her head and used the bed sheets of the hostel to tie them to her body in various ways. They were made of cotton woven greek fabrics in a traditional way with beautiful summer light colors (white, blue, yellow) and patterns (striped or plaid).
