Greek Islands hotels | MY GREECE TRAVEL BLOG

On our very first morning in the Greek Islands back in 2004, we were awestruck by this view from our balcony at the Myconian Ambassador Hotel on Mykonos

Va-va-va-view: On our first-ever trip to Greece, we arrived at Mykonos after nightfall and didn’t have a clue what kind of view we would get from our balcony at the Myconian Ambassador Hotel. The hotel employee who showed us to our room opened the balcony doors and assured us we would have beautiful sightlines of the sea and Platis Gialos beach, but most of the area was pitch black and we couldn’t see much more than lights from nearby hotels and houses. It also was surprisingly quiet, though whenever the light breeze blew in our direction, we could faintly hear Greek music being played in the tavernas lining the beach a few hundred meters below us.

When we woke up the next morning and pulled open the balcony doors, our jaws dropped as we got our first glimpse of Platis Gialos in daylight. The view was absolutely gorgeous! Spread out below were dozens of the island’s signature white cube buildings, the golden-brown sandy beach, and the vivid deep blues and tempting turquoise waters of the legendary Aegean Sea.

On all of our Greek Island holidays since then, we’ve always tried to get a hotel room with a good sea view. If the room itself doesn’t offer one, we’re content if there is at least a decent sea view from a public area somewhere else on the hotel property — be it a breakfast room, swimming pool terrace, or other place where we can sit, relax and gaze at the scenery. At home, all we see from our windows and balcony are highrise glass, steel and concrete towers. When we travel on holidays, we cherish views of the sea. It’s even better if we can see some islands and mountains, too. Bonus points if we can watch a spectacular sunset. But a Greek holiday just wouldn’t feel the same if we couldn’t see the Aegean.

I posted additional photos of the views from the Myconian Ambassador Hotel in my June 3 2011 post. Below are photos showing the various different views we have had from some of the other hotels we stayed at during Greek Island holidays since. Some of the views are terrific, and others considerably less so, but with only one or two exceptions, we always got to see the sea without having to leave our hotels.

The view from our balcony at the Rodos Palladium at Kallithea beach on Rhodes

Evening view from our balcony at the Rodos Palladium in 2004

Our Rodos Palladium balcony view of a full moon above Kallithea Bay in 2004

The balcony to our room at the Candia Maris Resort & Spa in Amoudara, Crete gave us this view of sea and mountains in 2004…

… as well as this view of the resort’s indoor swimming pool…

… plus this view of other balconies on our side of this particular hotel building

That’s me on our sea-view terrace at the Santorini Palace Hotel on Santorini in 2004. This isn’t the breathtaking caldera view for which Santorini is renowned (this is the less scenic east side of the island), but it looked great to us. And if we did want to see the spectacular caldera view, all we had to do was exit the hotel’s main entrance and walk 100 meters up a short slope — and there it was.

We couldn’t see a famous Santorini sunset from our terrace at the Santorini Palace Hotel, but we could see the sunset glowing on clouds above Imerovigli village

A view of Elia Bay on Mykonos from the Myconian Imperial Resort & Villas in 2005

Part of the sea view from our balcony at the Myconian Imperial Resort & Villas

More of the sea view from our balcony at the Myconian Imperial Resort & Villas

Houses and rental accommodation on the steep hillside rising to the left of our balcony at the Myconian Imperial Resort & Villas

Our bathroom window gave us a view of more hotel rooms higher up the hillside

In 2005, we enjoyed views of Naxos Town and Agios Georgios Bay from the Naxos Beach II hotel in the Stelida district of Naxos

Another view toward Naxos Town from the Naxos Beach II hotel

Our bedroom at Naxos Beach II had doors that opened onto a stone-paved terrace offering this view toward Naxos Town

Another view from the terrace outside our bedroom at the Naxos Beach II

At the Yria Hotel on Paros in 2005, our room had a large ground-level terrace

This was the view if we looked to the left while sitting on the terrace…

…while, unfortunately, this was the view to the right — overlooking an unattractive overflow parking area

We could catch a slight glimpse of the sea from the Yria’s swimming pool terrace…

…and also see a small section of Paraspora beach, which was just a five-minute walk down the road…

… but the Yria Hotel’s main attraction was its enormous swimming pool. It looked fantastic, but the chilly water was murky from suntan oil

In 2005, we loved this marvellous caldera view from our private terrace at the Phenix Hotel in the cliffside village of Imerovigli on Santorini

We didn’t even have to leave our hotel room to enjoy the amazing view…

…but we preferred to savour the stunning scenery from our sun-bathed terrace

Looking to the left, we had this view of other hotels perched perilously on the steep cliffside high above the sea in Imerovigli

Looking down, we could see the caldera and cruise ships below the town of Fira

And from an upper level of the hotel, we enjoyed this view of the volcano island (Nea Kameni) and the gorgeous swimming pool at the Honeymoon Petra Villas, a beautiful multi-level hotel clinging to the cliffside next door to the Phenix

Waves rolling ashore in the scenic Little Venice area of Mykonos Town

Feels like home: Once my partner and I had decided we were going to travel to Greece for the first time, we couldn’t decide which islands to visit. We were going to be travelling on a package tour, and had a huge variety of itinerary options. Most of the island hopping packages scheduled Mykonos as the first stop, but we weren’t all that keen on going there. We had heard that Mykonos is a wild and crazy island where people party in the streets and on the beaches 24/7. We wanted a restful, relaxing holiday, and didn’t relish the idea of not being able to sleep off our jet lag because noise from non-stop partying might keep us awake. But our travel agent promised that Mykonos wasn’t anything like we’d heard, and she urged us to go. “I know you’re going to come back and tell me you loved it,” she insisted. Somewhat reluctantly, we agreed to include Mykonos, and headed to Greece.

We arrived at Mykonos after dark, following a gruelling full day of travel. (It took nearly 24 hours from the time we left our home in Toronto until the moment we walked into our hotel room on Mykonos.) It was the last weekend in May, but when the crew opened the doors of the highspeed ferry once it had docked at the new port on Mykonos, we got blasted by a strong cold wind. We had been expecting Mykonos to be as hot as central Athens had been during our afternoon wait for the ferry, so the bone-chilling winds at the Mykonos port took us completely by surprise.

The shuttle bus ride from the port to our hotel — the Myconian Ambassador at Platis Gialos beach — was largely a blur, since the driver raced along the island’s twisting, hilly roads at breakneck speed. I recall seeing a Starbucks somewhere along the road, but didn’t recognize anything else. I was relieved when we got to the hotel without crashing, but was disappointed that we couldn’t see what the Platis Gialos area looked like because it was so dark. I kept my fingers crossed, hoping we would like what we saw when we woke up the next morning.

In my case, that was around 4 a.m. I peeked out the doors to our small balcony but couldn’t see much, so I went back to sleep. Sometime around 5 I awoke once more, hearing roosters crowing somewhere close by. I took another look outside and could see whitewashed buildings below us (the hotel is built up the side of a hill), but in the hazy pre-dawn light I still couldn’t tell if Platis Gialos was as nice as our travel agent said it would be. So I went back to bed for a few hours. When we finally got up and opened the balcony doors, we were thrilled to see a brilliant sunny morning and jaw-dropping gorgeous views not just of Platis Gialos beach and bay, but also nearby Psarou beach and bay. Just as the travel agent had predicted, we loved what we saw. We couldn’t have asked for a better welcome to Mykonos!

Below are several photos showing the views from our hotel room at the Myconian Ambassador. More photos of the hotel can be viewed in the Myconian Ambassador Hotel album on the mygreecetravelblog.com Facebook page.

The view from the balcony for our room at the Myconian Ambassador Hotel, overlooking the Platis Gialos beach resort area of Mykonos

The view to the far left, in the direction of nearby Paranga beach

The buildings below are hotels, many of which sit alongside Platis Gialos beach

Rows of rental loungers and umbrellas line most of the length of Platis Gialos beach

The hotel sits on a steep hill, but the walk to the beach takes only five minutes

A path winds above the coast from Platis Gialos to the rocky peninsula, passing small coves and inlets as well as a sandy crescent-shaped beach visible in the photo. From there, the path continues to Paranga beach.

Most days there were at least two private yachts anchored in Platis Gialos bay

From our balcony, the view to the right takes in much of Psarou bay, where several more luxury yachts are anchored

Mykonos has been a favourite destination of the affluent jet set for decades, and Psarou beach is one of their favourite places to see and be seen