Category: Greek Islands hotels (Page 11 of 12)

Cool pools: Splash and dive through the ancient Portara monument at the Naxos Beach II Hotel

September 1, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

The bottom of the oval swimming pool at the Naxos Beach II Hotel is decorated with a large illustration of the Portara, the island’s most famous monument

Good swims: Our all-time favourite swimming pool in the Greek Islands is the only one in which we actually got to spend quite a bit of time splashing around without feeling like we were going to freeze. As I’ve mentioned before, we usually find the water in hotel swimming pools too chilly for swimming when we travel to Greece in the spring. We’ve found some pools to be too cold to our liking even in late September, too! But we didn’t have any complaints about water temperature in 2005 when we stayed at the Naxos Beach II Hotel during our first visit to Naxos.

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Our windowless cave-style Santorini hotel room with its low ‘hobbit’ door

August 28, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

Room 119 at Grotto Villas/Cliff Side Suites in Firostefani had no window …

… and the door was only 5 feet 5 inches tall. Don’t forget to duck!

Head knocker: Santorini is world-renowned for spectacular scenery, and its magnificent caldera views drew us back to the island three consecutive years in a row. We just couldn’t get enough of the breathtaking landscape, colourful clifftop villages and endless views of the gorgeous blue Aegean Sea. So imagine our reaction when we arrived at the Grotto Villas/Cliff Side Suites hotel in Firostefani to discover that our assigned room — #119 — didn’t even have a window!

That happened back in 2006, but I still remember our surprise and disappointment like it were yesterday. It would be bad enough to be assigned a windowless hotel room anywhere when you’re travelling on vacation. But on Santorini of all islands? There ought to be a law against it! To add insult to injury, the room door had a low frame, and I kept banging the top of my head on it whenever I went in and out. I’m only 5’7, and until I arrived at Grotto Villas/Cliff Side Suites I never expected that I would ever be too tall to walk into a hotel room while standing upright!

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Sea, sun, sand, drinks & dining at Platis Gialos, the popular Mykonos “family” beach

August 23, 2011 / admin / 2 Comments

A hotel and resort area just a 15-minute bus ride from Mykonos Town, Platis Gialos is one of the most popular beaches on Mykonos island …

… with hundreds of rental sunbeds and a good selection of bars and tavernas at the front of hotels stretching along the sandy beach

Family friendly: If you want to spend time with your kids on a beautiful Mykonos beach that has a good selection of restaurants, bars and water sports facilities, but none of the raucous and raunchy partying that some of the island’s beaches are famous for, then you’ve got two excellent choices on the island’s south coast.

You could visit Ornos beach, which I profiled in my July 24 2011 post, or you could go to Platis Gialos beach. They’re not the only family-friendly beaches on Mykonos, of course, but they are two of the easiest to reach from Mykonos Town — especially if you don’t plan to rent a vehicle during your island visit and will be relying solely on buses or taxis to get around.

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Quirks & curiosities: Castle-sized room key in Naxos

August 19, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

Our biggest hotel room key — ever — had to be the one that opened our studio at the Naxos Beach II hotel on a hillside in the Stelida district of Naxos.

The key was’t just big, but it was heavy, too. It nearly poked a hole in my shorts pocket, so we turned it in to reception every time we left the hotel.

Here I am wielding the big key after opening our studio’s split door

Cool pools: The curvaceous chilly swimming pool at the Rodos Palladium on Kallithea beach, Rhodes

August 2, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

A late afternoon view of the huge free-form swimming pool at the Rodos Palladium. The pool is just steps from Kallithea beach, 8 km from Rhodes Town.

Hot and cold: The biggest hotel swimming pool we’ve seen in the Greek Islands — so far — was the large free-form pool at the five-star Rodos Palladium hotel, just a stone’s throw from Kallithea beach on Rhodes.

We stayed at the Rodos Palladium on an island-hopping package tour during our first-ever trip to Greece back in 2004. The swimming pool and its spacious deck looked quite impressive from our hotel room balcony, and reminded us of some of the huge free-form pools we’ve enjoyed at resorts in the Caribbean and Central America. The big difference was the water temperature. Whereas we spent hours in the pool on our holidays to the southern destinations, we couldn’t even get in the pool at the Rodos Palladium because the water was so incredibly cold! Even after laying in the sun for a couple of hours, the water was too cold to bear. We weren’t the only ones who couldn’t get in — very few other guests could tolerate the cold temperature, either. Only a couple of people braved the chilly water, and didn’t stay in it for long.

The hotel also has an indoor heated pool, but the water temperature there was at the other extreme — way too hot! It felt like swimming in a giant hot tub, and the hot water wasn’t the least bit refreshing. We didn’t get any photos of the indoor pool — the pool room was so steamy, it fogged up my camera lens — but we did take several pics of the outdoor pool, which appear below:

Looking across part of the outdoor swimming pool toward two of the Rodos Palladium hotel buildings …

… and looking to the right, from the same position, at another hotel wing

Our hotel room balcony view of the Rodos Palladium swimming pool. Note the rows of dozens of lounge chairs and umbrellas at the far end of the pool.

The circular bar in the middle of the Rodos Palladium pool

A view of the Rodos Palladium swimming pool and beach at dusk

An afternoon view of the pool. Three people are visible in the pool, probably the most we saw in the bone-chilling-cold water at any one time — even though the air temperature was rather toasty, hitting the high 20s Celsius.

Chill out! Truly cool Greek Island pools

July 28, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

The gorgeous swimming pool at the Honeymoon Petra Villas in Imerovigli is positioned on the Santorini caldera cliffside hundreds of feet above the Aegean Sea …

… with spectacular views of Nea Kameni, the volcano island

Deep freeze: There are two great ways to beat the extreme summer heat in the Greek Islands: go for a swim in the sea, or take a plunge in a really cool hotel pool. But depending on the time of season you travel, there’s a good chance the pool could be cooler, if not downright frigid. There’s also a chance the water in both the sea and the pools could be too cold for swimming altogether. At least, that’s been our experience.

We typically travel to Greece in May, and have always encountered hot weather — including brief but brutal heat waves on Naxos and Santorini that sent afternoon temperatures soaring to nearly 40 Celsius. But regardless of how hot the air temperature got, the Aegean Sea has always been too cold for us to swim. In fact, there have been times I couldn’t even wade in the water during visits to Mykonos, Naxos, Paros and Santorini because it felt like my feet started to freeze only seconds after stepping in. Even just dipping my toes in the water at Super Paradise beach on Mykonos one May was too painful because the water was so bitterly cold.

Surprisingly, our hotel swimming pools haven’t been much warmer. And sometimes they’ve actually been colder! I could count on one hand the number of times we were able to spend more than five minutes in a pool, and on just one finger the number where we lasted longer than 10 minutes.

Even when we travelled to the islands during the second half of September one year, we got to swim only twice — once in the sea (which was blissfully warm) and once in a pool (which was shockingly cold) — even though Greece had experienced blistering heat waves throughout the summer.

Are we disappointed that we haven’t been able to do more swimming in Greece? Maybe just a bit. We’ve had good times at plenty of island beaches, and we’ve enjoyed spectacular views from most of our hotel swimming pool terraces. Cooling off with an ice cold bottle of Mythos instead of a swim hasn’t been so bad!

I’ll tell you more about our pool and sea swimming experiences in upcoming “Chill Out!” posts. For today, however, here are pics of some of the cool swimming pools we’ve seen during our visits to Santorini.

The cliffside swimming pool and whirlpool at Dana Villas in Firostefani

Another view of the Dana Villas swimming pool and terrace

The cliffside swimming pool at Pegasus Suites hotel in Imerovigli …

… has a terrace that juts over the island’s rugged volcanic cliffs

Swimmers can watch ferry and cruise ships come and go from this sea view swimming pool atop the caldera in Firostefani

Another clifftop hotel swimming pool in Firostefani

Yet another Firostefani pool terrace with views of cruise ships

A closer look at the Firostefani pool pictured above

A small caldera-view swimming pool on the cliffside in Fira

An air mattress floats in a cliffside swimming pool in Imerovigli …

… while lounge chairs on the adjacent terrace overlook Skaros Rock

The caldera-view swimming pool at the Kafieris Apartments in Firostefani

Another view of the pool at the Kafieris Apartments

The Kafieris Apartments swimming pool at night

I’ve always loved the look of this pool and terrace at what appears to be a private villa on the cliffside in Firostefani …

… from above, the pool’s shape reminds me of an apple …

… there’s comfy cushions for lounging in the sun beside the pool …

… as well as lounge chairs and a shady nook nearby

The big palm tree next to the pool draws some attention away from the villa’s unique Cycladic architecture

Here’s another view of the palm tree and the pool …

… which has an infinity edge offering great views of the sea far below

The uniquely shaped and situated pool at the Honeymoon Petra Villas in Imerovigli offers some of the most stunning views in all of Santorini

The swimming pool and terrace offer incredible views in several directions

The pool is built into the cliffside hundreds of feet above the sea …

… and has a shallow wading pool on the hotel level below

A side view of the Honeymoon Petra Villas pool …

… and some of the apartments built of volcanic rock from the island

One final view of the Honeymoon Petra Villas swimming pool, this time from the clifftop footpath that leads to Oia in one direction, and to Fira in the other

Greece holiday pic of the day

July 15, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

This clifftop sitting area at Honeymoon Petra Villas in Imerovigli has extensive southward views across Santorini, including the village of Firostefani (upper left).

Rochari Hotel’s seaview bar is an ideal place to have drinks during sunset on Mykonos

June 25, 2011 / admin / 1 Comment

Giaros Island appears beneath a sky of glowing clouds in this spectacular sunset view from the Rochari Hotel‘s cocktail terrace on May 18 2011.

Scenic overlook: The seaside cocktail bars at Little Venice usually get top mention in travel forums when people ask for advice about good sunset viewing locations in and around Mykonos Town. We’ve seen some wonderful sunsets from there, from Windmill Hill overlooking Little Venice, and from the rocky seashore just below the Paraportiani Church, too. We’ve also enjoyed tremendous sunset views the three times we have stayed at Hotel Tagoo, a 15-minute walk north of Town in the island’s Tagoo district. Thanks to a tip from an online colleague, this year we experienced a superb new sunset viewing spot for the first time — one that now ranks among our favourites.

In a post on TripAdvisor.com’s Mykonos travel forum, fellow Mykonos Destination Expert jon_rwr had suggested my partner and I go for a drink on the terrace at the Rochari Hotel sometime. I remembered his recommendation on May 18 when we arrived at the Fabrika bus depot following a full day of hiking to four different beaches on the island’s south coast. We had spent hours on our feet and were looking forward to just sitting and relaxing with a drink before dinner — but where? We wanted to visit some place new, with a view … and since the Rochari was just a short walk up Ag Ioannou Street from the bus depot, we took Jon’s advice and headed right there.

Jon’s recommendation was excellent! The Rochari’s sun-soaked cocktail terrace overlooks much of Mykonos Town, including the iconic windmills, with sweeping panoramic views of the sea and other nearby islands. It proved to be the perfect place for us to relax and unwind with a nice glass of wine at the end of our active afternoon. When the blazing sun dipped closer to the horizon, painting rich, warm hues of amber and gold on the clouds and western sky, a distant island suddenly came into sharper view. We had been chatting with Darren, the Rochari’s cheery, affable bartender, while we were shooting photos of the spectacular scene dramatically playing out before us. Darren politely excused himself for a moment so he could grab his camera to take some shots of his own, explaining that we were experiencing a remarkably clear view of Giaros Island. (We realized it must have been a noteworthy sunset if Darren, whose enviable “office” gives him gorgeous views every evening, was compelled to capture it in photos, too).

The sun went down a short while later, but the terrace remained a comfortable and cozy spot to enjoy the evening. Unfortunately, that was our final night on Mykonos this particular holiday, so we couldn’t make a return visit. But we’ll definitely be going back there for more wine and sunsets on our next trip. With its amazing views of Mykonos Town and those stunning sunsets over the Aegean Sea, the Rochari’s terrace will be one of my “must see” Mykonos recommendations. If you happen to drop by for a drink, please give our regards to Darren. And don’t forget to bring your sunglasses — the rays of the setting sun get so strong and intense, you’ll certainly need to wear them! (By the way: The Rochari is a beautiful hotel in a great location; keep it in mind if you’re searching for quality accommodations right in Mykonos Town.)

Below are several photos of the sunset views from the Rochari Hotel cocktail terrace. More photos can be viewed in the Mykonos 2011: Sunset at the Rochari Hotel album on the mygreecetravelblog.com Facebook page.

Cocktail terrace view of the Rochari Hotel’s swimming pool and deck

Rochari Hotel terrace view of the swimming pool and part of Mykonos Town

Terrace view of Mykonos Town before sunset

Me on the terrace, enjoying the views under the hot evening sun

Standing on the Rochari terrace at sunset, with the whitewashed buildings of Mykonos Town spread out below the hotel

A shot from the other direction, with more of Mykonos Town and part of Tinos island providing a backdrop in the distance

The terrace has amazing views of Mykonos Town and nearby islands

Sunset view from a table inside the Rochari Hotel lounge

Giaros island starts to become more visible in the amber clouds below the sun

The sunset reflects in the calm water of the hotel swimming pool

The terrace is a perfect place to enjoy a nice glass of wine or an ice cold drink

Giaros Island starts to take center stage directly below the setting sun

Clouds in the sky above Giaros Island take on an amber glow in the sunset

A great view overlooking Mykonos Town and islands across the horizon

Hotel terrace view of the famous windmills on the hillside above Little Venice

Another peek at the Rochari pool as the sun prepares to dip below the horizon

Mykonos Town spreads out below the hotel; Tinos island is visible to the right