Category: Greek Islands hotels (page 6 of 13)

A travel blogger’s first-time visits to Santorini and Mykonos

May 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments
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Fira Santorini panoramic image by Christine from Vancouver blog IMG_20150508_102459

A panoramic view of Fira, the capital and main town on Santorini

 

Octopus at Amoudi Bay Santorini image by Christine from Vancouver blog IMG_20150511_130719_hdr

Octopus at Amoudi Bay on Santorini

 

Do you wonder what it’s like visiting Greek islands for the first time? Especially as a solo female traveller?

Two fascinating trip reports by a travel blogger from Vancouver, Canada will give you excellent insight into the entire experience. (They’re also great fun to read even if you have already been to Greece yourself.)

Blogger Christine visited Santorini and Mykonos earlier this month during a two-week holiday — her first-ever trip to Greece. She posted a thorough account of her journey, complete with dozens of photos, on her Christine in Vancouver blog.

I love the reports not just because they show Greece through the eyes of an island-hopping “newbie,” but also since they include scores of food pictures and valuable information about costs and prices — important details that I think will be extremely helpful to others considering a trip to Greece.

Click here to read Christine’s report for her May 6 to 13 stay on Santorini, and click here to read about her May 13 to 19 visit to Mykonos.

The two photos from Santorini posted above, as well as the two photos from Mykonos shown below, are just four of the dozens of fabulous pictures you’ll get to see in Christine’s reports (you’ll be able to view her photos full-size in a slide-show format.)

Enjoy your trip to Santorini and Mykonos with Christine!

 

Mykonos Town streets image by Christine from Vancouver blog IMG_2819

Streets in the heart of Mykonos Town

 

Ornos beach Mykonos image by Christine from Vancouver blog IMG_20150516_135434_hdr

Ornos, one of the top “family” beach resort areas on Mykonos

 

Private seaside cinema: the new Greek island luxury villa perk

May 15, 2015 / / 1 Comment
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Private beach cinema at Casa del Mar Mykonos photo 01 from SLH Facebook page

This summer, guests at Casa del Mar Mykonos Seaside Resort can go to the movies at a private seaside “cinema” on the beach below their villas

 

Coming soon to a beach near your Greek Island luxury villa — a private seaside cinema?

That’s actually what guests at the Casa del Mar Mykonos Seaside Resort will get to enjoy after dark this summer should they prefer to stay “home” one night rather than travel two miles (4 km) into Mykonos Town to shop, dine, party or people-watch. Merely by walking down a few steps to the resort’s private beach, they’ll be able to curl up on a comfy lounge chair with a glass of wine or bowl of popcorn and watch a film displayed on a wide-screen high-definition panel positioned right on the water’s edge.

A member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group of independent hotels, Casa del Mar is an exclusive villa and spa resort at Glyfadi beach, a quiet off-the-beaten-path cove in the Aleomandra area at the southwest tip of Mykonos. The resort website describes Casa del Mar as “an eclectic collection” of nine “luxury sea view suites … grandly appointed with deluxe amenities, quality furnishings and modern conveniences.” 

The newest of those “conveniences” was unveiled this week when the Small Luxury Hotels Facebook page posted the two photographs that I have republished in this article. A photo caption read: “There’s nothing wrong with a night in! We think the brand new private beach cinema at SLH’s Casa Del Mar Mykonos might be just the ticket!”

If you’re not able to stay at Casa del Mar while visiting Mykonos this summer, don’t dismay — you can watch a movie outdoors at Cine Manto in Mykonos Town instead (starting May 22). It won’t be the same as watching a film from the comfort of a luxurious sunbed on a sandy beach, of course, but at least it’s in the fresh, open air in a lovely garden setting.

And if you’re travelling somewhere in Greece other than Mykonos, you might be able to attend an outdoor cinema near your destination, too, since there are more than 100 outdoor movie theatres in the country.

I couldn’t find an online directory listing all outdoor cinemas in Greece, but the Athens Info Guide website has a directory of summer cinemas in the city, which you can view by clicking here.

You can read more about the Athens outdoor cinemas on the Greeka.com blog, and on the Visit Greece tourism website.

And for an interesting read about how digital technology is impacting on Greece’s outdoor cinemas, see this August 2014 article from The Guardian newspaper in the U.K.

 

Private beach cinema at Casa del Mar Mykonos photo 02 from SLH Facebook page

Another view of the private beach cinema at Casa del Mar Mykonos

 

Mykonos set for 2015 season with over 100 new places to eat, drink, shop, sleep and party

May 8, 2015 / / 6 Comments
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Cayenne Mykonos restaurant logo

Located at Tourlos, just a short walk from the New Port, Cayenne is among dozens of brand-new businesses on Mykonos this year. 

 

[Updated October 30 2015]

 “Crisis? What crisis?” That’s a question many regular visitors to Mykonos will probably ask when they see the more than 100 new and completely-renovated businesses that have opened on the island this year.

While Greece shudders through its sixth straight year of devastating economic turbulence,  Mykonos appears to be in a different world altogether, virtually unscathed from the recession that has ravaged the rest of the country.

Last year, the island enjoyed a record year for tourism — receiving more than 2 million visitors — and some longtime local residents told me they could not recall ever seeing the island as crowded and busy as it was during July and August. Hotels were filled to capacity, flotillas of luxury yachts were common sights at many beaches, and champagne flowed by the caseload at bars and restaurants across the island. As I reported in a July 16 2014 post, hotel rates reached higher levels, too, with the international online travel firm Trivago noting that prices had soared as much as 61% over the previous year.

 

 

International brands flocking to Mykonos

In anticipation that even more tourists with thick wallets will arrive in 2015, local and international companies have been pouring millions of Euros into the construction of new hotels, shops, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as the renovation or upgrading of existing properties. Indeed, since late last autumn, Mykonos has been experiencing an unprecedented building boom as small armies of contractors swarmed around the island in a rush to finish dozens of projects. Global business brands flocked to the island in droves, scooping up any available real estate for their new Mykonos outlets.

With many of the new enterprises aimed at affluent travellers, Mykonos mayor Konstantinos Koukas has told local media he’s confident that the island is now well-poised to compete for a bigger share of the the world’s luxury travel market, and will successfully lure big spenders who usually flock to other Mediterranean hotspots like St Tropez, Monaco and Ibiza.

To see what’s new on Mykonos this year, please click on the convenient quick links below:

Click here for page 2 to read about new and newly-renovated restaurants in Mykonos Town,  Tourlos, and the Ano Mera area.

Click here for page 3, which describes  new and renovated beach restaurants, as well as the island’s two big new beach clubs, Monarch and Scorpios.

Click here for page 4, which highlights new and renovated nightlife venues in Mykonos Town, including bars, nightclubs, and shisha lounges; and

Click here for page 5, which introduces you to the island’s new spas, retail shopping establishments, and hotels.

 

Food Mall Mykonos image from the restaurants' Facebook page

More than two dozen new restaurants opened on Mykonos for 2015, and five of them can be found under one roof at the Food Mall Mykonos on the highway between Mykonos Town and Ano Mera.

 

Aerial view of Scorpios Mykonos

Widely recognized as the hippest new beach club on Mykonos for 2015, the Scorpios Beach Restaurant and Bar became one of the most popular places on the island within weeks of its opening in an “idyllic haven” on a peninsula between Paraga and Platis Gialos. 

 

Monarch Restaurant & Beach Club at Kalo Livadi Mykonos photo from its website

Another new beach club and restaurant is Monarch at Kalo Livadi, which boasts cuisine designed by a Michelin-starred chef, comfy beachfront lounge chairs, and occasional special events and big parties. 

 

Buddha-Bar Beach restaurant and bar at Santa Marina Resort Mykonos photo from the resort Facebook page

The world’s first Buddha-Bar Beach restaurant, bar and beach club opened on May 20 at the Santa Marina Resort at Ornos. 

 

Ling Ling Mykonos entrance

One of the most eagerly awaited new arrivals on Mykonos was Ling Ling, a Hakkasan-branded Cantonese fine dining restaurant and  uber-chic nightspot.  It opened in July in the premises that had been occupied for decades by the famous Philippi Garden Restaurant, which closed a few years ago after its owner died. 

 

Bonbonniere Mykonos nightclub

June 27 saw the launch of yet another new nightclub when Bonbonniere Mykonos threw its opening party in the ODE Mykonos club in the Tria Pigadia area of Mykonos Town. It’s a summer “pop up” version of the world-famous Bonbonniere club in London whose owner, Joe Fournier (wearing the white polo shirt) is pictured after signing a contract to bring Bonbonniere to the ODE space for the season.

 

Caprice Bar Mykonos photo from inmykonos dot com website

Mykonos residents and visitors weren’t just buzzing about new business openings this spring — people were also chatting about the abrupt closure of the enormously popular Caprice Bar (pictured above) and its surprise reopening a few weeks later as Caprice, a restaurant-bar located just a few doors down from its old place at Little Venice. 

 

Mykonos No 5 Villas luxury apartments photo from the hotel website

Mykonos No.5 Villas is one of the island’s newest hotels, offering a selection of seaview apartment residences, lofts and maisonettes in the Kanalia district 3.5 kilometers from Mykonos Town.

 

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Thanks for more than 3 million views of our Greece photos!

April 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments
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Screenshot of the mygreecetravelblog page on Flickr

This is a screenshot of the MyGreeceTravelBlog photostream on Flickr, which contains more than 23,000 of our photos of Greece

 

Thanks in large measure to readers of this blog, the MyGreeceTravelBlog photo collection on Flickr reached a major milestone this week, surpassing the 3,000,000-view mark.

I have posted 23,000 images on Flickr to date and still have at least 10,000 more pictures from Greece to upload, if I can ever find the time. (I’m certain that number will rise substantially after our next visit to Greece later this spring.)

A few surprises were in store when I checked Flickr’s viewing statistics for the photos this week.

The individual photo with the all-time most views was a picture of Agios Prokopios beach on Naxos. But I doubt it was popular because the beach is so beautiful — I suspect some nudists wading in the water were of more interest than the golden sand and turquoise water! (If you want to view the image and won’t be offended seeing several middle-aged and older tourists displaying some skin, click here.)

 

Syros photos were the most popular

I also was amazed that our set of 18 albums from last year’s trip to Syros was the most popular individual collection on our Flickr page. I had been expecting that our Mykonos collection would be the most viewed, but people seemed to prefer looking at pics of Syros. (You can access the Syros photos by clicking here.) Mykonos did claim the #2 spot, though.

So far, there are album collections for 13 islands — Amorgos, Astipalea, Crete, Folegandros, Ios, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Patmos, Samos, Santorini, and Syros — plus one set with photos of many (but not all) of the hotels we have stayed at during our Greek holidays. More collections, including one for Athens, are in the works.  Click here to access the main Flickr page showing cover pages for all of the album collections.

Thanks very much for viewing the photos, and please feel free to comment on any of them at any time.

 Kini beach on Syros

Our photo sets of Syros had the most views of any collection on our Flickr page. They included shots of Kini (above), our favourite beach resort on Syros.

Why you should visit Paros

April 3, 2015 / / 1 Comment
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BEST OF PAROS from Art in Design-Alternative on Vimeo.

 

PAROS from Dimitris Christopoulos on Vimeo.

 

I never need an excuse to visit Greece, but in online travel forums I often see people asking whether they should go to certain places, or wondering why specific Greek destinations are popular.  They think they want to visit them, but they really don’t have a clue what they will get to see and do once they get there.

Paros is one of those places. Since it’s a stop on the busy ferry route between Mykonos and Santorini, the two most popular Cyclades islands, many travellers realize it would conveniently fit into an island-hopping itinerary. But is it the right island for them to visit? Does it have enough attractions to make it a worthwhile stopover for a few days?

I think these two films, which I found on Vimeo today, will help visitors determine if Paros is their kind of place. (I think the answer will most likely be “yes.”) I’ve already been to Paros (twice), but both videos made me want to go back again.

In case you need more convincing, click here to view my Paros Greece 2012 collection on Flickr, which features hundreds of photos from the picturesque harbour village of Naoussa, and several beaches in its surrounding area. Some photos of the main port town of Parikia, as well as the Yria Hotel and the scenic coastline near Parasporos beach, can be viewed in my Paros collection.

Marathi: a get-away-from-it-all Greek Island

March 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments
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Marathi island

This was my first view — from a ferry — of the serene bay on Marathi where the tiny island’s restaurants and rental rooms are located …

 

Stavragos Taverna Marathi

… while this is a view of the bay from the taverna terrace at Stavragos, one of only three places where people can eat and  stay while visiting Marathi (photo from a  Stavragos group page on Facebook).

 

Island escape: Sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed and stressed by city life — the crowded streets and sidewalks, incessant urban noise, construction all around and illuminated advertising signs everywhere I look — I daydream about getting away from it all on a remote Greek island few people know about. Somewhere like Marathi.

A tiny isle situated about 12 nautical miles east of Patmos in the Dodecanese island group, Marathi is off the beaten tourist path and free from crowds, traffic, noise and light pollution. According to Kalispera Greece, the English-language version of a Swedish website about Greece, it’s an ideal spot for someone seeking a Robinson Crusoe-style escape from the demands of contemporary urban life.

That’s because there simply isn’t much there —  just “three tavernas, three pensions, two jetties, one cemetery, one tiny church, a few goats and a pretty nice sandy beach. There are no shops, no cars, no scooters, no villages and no roads,” Kalispera Greece says.

 

There aren’t many people, either. A recently-published travel article on the website for the UK newspaper The Telegraph called Marathi one of Greece’s 11 least populated islands, with only 12 residents in summertime and just 3 during the winter.

No crowds? No traffic? No bright digital ads? No noise besides birdsong, crowing roosters and jingling goat bells? It sounds idyllic to me, and in online holiday reviews many Marathi visitors have used the word “paradise” to describe the island.

 

Marathi island

A hilltop view of the Marathi bay and nearby Arki island. (Image from the website for The Pirate Rooms and Taverna on Marathi.)

 

Marathi bay

Side view of the Marathi bay in another photo from the public Facebook group page for Stavragos Taverna and Rooms

 

I haven’t stayed on Marathi yet, but I have been enthralled by the dream of enjoying some quality rest and relaxation there after getting a brief glimpse of the isle nearly five years ago.

We were riding the Nissos Kalymnos ferry from Patmos to Samos at the time. The ship had just stopped at the island of Arki, and I was on the open deck enjoying the scenery as we headed to the next port of call, Agathonisi.  As we passed a crescent-shaped bay with a sandy beach on Marathi, I spotted several people watching us from a vine-sheltered terrace at what I assumed was either a private vacation home or a holiday rental villa. I felt a tinge of envy, imagining how restful it must have been for those people if a ferry sailing past once a day was one of the few interruptions to the island’s prevailing peace and tranquillity.

 

Several weeks later, when I was organizing photos I had shot during the ferry ride, I couldn’t stop looking at my pictures of the Marathi beach and bay. I wanted to learn more about the island and, a few Google searches later, discovered that I had photographed Stavragos, one of only three properties on Marathi with a taverna and rooms for rent.

Click on the link below to view additional photos and read more about Marathi on page 2 of this post.

 Stavragos Taverna

When I saw this building from the ferry, I thought it was a private vacation home. It’s actually rental accommodations and an excellent restaurant — Stavragos Taverna and Rooms.  It has four rooms for rent, and serves seafood and home-cooked Greek cuisine at its seaview garden terrace.

 

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New 4-star hotel set to open at Platis Gialos beach on Mykonos

January 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments
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The George Hotel Mykonos

This photo, from The George Hotel’s Facebook page, shows the Platis Gialos hillside location of the soon-to-open accommodations

 

 Hillside hotel: Mykonos-bound travellers will have more accommodation choices at Platis Gialos once a brand-new hotel, The George, opens for the 2015 summer season on May 1.

The George Hotel only has a presence on Facebook so far, where it has billed itself as a 4-star property and posted several photos showing the hotel exterior, a sample room interior, and a typical hotel room view. But its website and online booking system should be up and running in early February. [Editor’s update: The website and booking page were operational as of January 29.]

The hotel is built into the side of the rocky hill that stands behind Platis Gialos beach, one of the most popular strands on the island. The George appears to be situated next door to the 5-star Myconian Ambassador Hotel, which just happens to be the first hotel we ever stayed at in Greece. It’s an excellent location: George Hotel guests will enjoy wonderful views of the Platis Gialos area while being just a 5-minute walk from the beach in one direction, and a similar walking distance from the nearest bus stop in the other.

Platis Gialos is one of the best resort areas to stay at on Mykonos, since it offers a good selection of restaurants right on the beach and close by, along with several convenience stores, and is walking distance from four nearby beaches — Psarou, Agia Anna, Paraga and Paradise. Moreover, it takes less than 15 minutes to get to Mykonos Town by regular bus service or by taxi.

The George is affiliated with the Acrogriali Hotel, which is one of several hotels fronting on Platis Gialos beach.

General manager Argyrios G. Theoharis told me The George will have three room types, all of which offer sea views: deluxe double; deluxe triple, and a 2-bedroom family room that can accommodate up to 5 guests. Room rates will be available once the website and online booking system are launched next month.

Below are several photos from The George Hotel Facebook page, where several more room and view pictures can be viewed.

See my August 23 2011 post for photos and information about Platis Gialos beach.

 The George Hotel Mykonos

I have circled The George Hotel location on this aerial photo of Platis Gialos

 The George Hotel Mykonos

From The George Hotel Facebook page, a view of the hotel exterior

 The George Hotel Mykonos

This is one of three room interior photos posted on the hotel Facebook page

The George Hotel Mykonos

Guests of The George will enjoy views like this of the Platis Gialos area

A warm reminder of a spring day on Syros

January 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments
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Kini beach

To distract myself from our January deep freeze in Canada, I’ve been looking through photos of Greek Island beaches, like this one of Kini Bay from our visit to Syros last May. If you’d like to see more photos of this lovely family beach to take your mind off winter weather wherever you might be, click here to access my Kini beach album on Flickr.

 

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