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Greece is not a beach with a country attached, whatever the booking sites would have you believe. It is a way of arranging a day: the shutter angled against noon, the long hum of the evening when the squares refill, a grandfather nursing a measure of Naxian kitron as though guarding a state secret. The hotels we cross the water for get this in their bones. Drawn from the same rock they stand on, run by people who answer their own emails, quite happy to let the light do the decorating, they are the Greek houses that anchor our Unwaxed Lemons magazine edit. Design hotels, yes – but you come for the design and stay for the soul. Our favourites, then.
Greece and its Wunderkammer of islands is rarely understood; most folk assume one island is much like the next. It isn’t. The common threads are all there, cute villages, working ports, beaches and farmlands, yet the mood runs the full gamut from hedonism to romance to pitstops of pure stillness. The islands are siblings: alike at a glance, wildly different up close. The cultural legacy runs deep, laced through daily life, the mythical gods as present in the chatter now as they were back then, the whole place tuned to the long life of enjoyment and taking it easy. And over on the mainland, the metropolis of Athens, the new ‘Berlin’ of creativity, spills from the mountains down to the Aegean, all museums, ancient sites, bookshops and a vibrant foodie scene; wander its leafier districts and a more grown-up sideof Athenian life reveals itself.
Start on Naxos, where the design-led boutique hotel Ayiopetra keeps to the island’s fertile interior, set in the Sangri valley beside the 6th-century BC Temple of Demeter. Three low volumes of honeyed Sangri stone and pale plaster step down the hillside, their terraces turned towards grain fields, olive groves and the temple’s marble columns rather than the sea. The work of former ELLE Decoration Greece editor Tonia Ayiopetritou and her son Dimitris, it is an adults-friendly retreat of just five suites: the place where Naxianarchaeology and agriculture carry on their long, whispered conversation. Somewhere, as they have it, to simply be.
On Santorini, Aenaon Villas is perched on the very edge of the Caldera, individually crafted houses that cling to the rock formations, blending whitewashed minimalism, handcrafted detail and a refined boutique aesthetic beyond the typical villa. The six houses sit on a secluded plateau between Imerovigli and Oia, your own slice of uninterrupted Caldera views, infinity pools carved into the lava rock, all void of the crowds. The brainchild of engineer Giorgos and his creative wife Alexandra Alexiou, with architect Giorgos Zacharopoulos: Aenaon means, in Greek, flowing continuously, unstoppably, eternally.
On Syros, the one the guidebooks forget and the Greeks do not, the design hotel Aristide Hotel is housed within a fabulously restored Venetian-styled mansion, nine suites and a stunning rooftop bar that have put the island back on the map. Behind a soft rose-coloured shuttered facade in the neoclassical Vaporia quarter of Hermoupolis, art, antiques and Tom Dixon lighting collide in an elegant bohemia; up top, the rooftop bar and evening restaurant look out over the Aegean and the town’s blue-domed churches. It is the work of first-time hoteliers, the sisters Oana and Jasmin, who fell for a dilapidated building that had once been the town’s tax office.
And on Koufonisia, slowest of the Small Cyclades, Éros Kéros is a sun-kissed boutique retreat of four cubic, Cyclades-style merchant villas that gaze lazily across to the island of Keros, hedged by olive trees, juniper and myrtle. Owner Anita Papantoniou pitches these design-led island houses at casual luxe: quarried stone floors, rattan and colour blocks of sage, cyan and terracotta, as restful and unapologetically authentic as Koufonisia itself.
Crete hides its best rooms up a hill. Near Kissos, Meraki Studios are six cave-like apartments by the architect Sigurd Larsen, poured from concrete and packed with local stone among the olive terraces. Architectural, elemental and satisfyingly hard to reach: Crete for those who came for the landscape, not the sunbeds.
Between islands, give Athens a night or three. In Kolonaki, the design guesthouse-hotel Monsieur Didot sits in the creative heartlands of the city, home to the creative set, bookshops, publishing houses, galleries, museums and cafés. An 1890 neoclassical mansion painted in peachy wet-plaster, its six suites are the work of soul sisters Natalia Georgopoulou and Margarita Papaioannou with Athens studio BaBatchas: a homage to Ambroise Firmin Didot, the philhellene printer behind the famous font. The civilised bookend to any island run.
And not everything in Athens is a hotel. As they have it, Plato argued that a beautiful place makes you think better; in the pines above the city, TATOÏ Club lavishes twenty hectares on proving him right, a discreet members’ club of architecture, sport and holistics, its clay tennis courts laid out among the trees.
Deeper into the Cyclades: our island guide to Naxos, the buried Minoan city of Akrotiri on Santorini, and a tasting tour of Santorini’s best wines. For the sand, our guides to the beaches of Syros and the wider Cyclades beach beauties.
In the capital: our Athens city guide, the design-led bookshop Hyper Hypo, and the radical art of The Breeder gallery.
And a well-earned drink: Nissos, the independent craft brewery on the Cycladic island of Tinos.
Every one of these features in Unwaxed Lemons, our printed love letter to thirty-six family-run Mediterranean design hotels. Fancy more? That is where you will find the full set.
Cool design, contemporary styling and a hug to local island culture make our pick of five easy-to-get-to Cycladic island escapes of Santorini, Tinos, Naxos, Syros, Sérifos and Koufonisia, all the more irresistible.
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Scattered amid the Aegean Sea on the Cycladic Islands of Santorini, Tinos, Syros, Sérifos and Koufonisia are some of Greece’s most dramatically scenic beaches, coves and sandy inlets to discover.
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The Greek island of Tinos is fast becoming the Cyclades' hidden art destination - from heritage crafts to hotel bastions of style and design.
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Éros Kéros Villas, on the slow-pace Cyclades island of Koufonisia, come drenched in Aegean blue vistas – a sun-kissed boutique retreat of four cubic Cyclades-style merchant houses that lazily gaze onto the island of Keros.
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Escape to Tinos – the Greek island of over 60 Cycladic villages, art, culture, great natural food, pristine beaches and enough churches (1500+) to feel totally blessed – and slip into a new way of living, the Tinos way.
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Giorgos and Alexandra Alexiou are simply two of the nicest people you can meet, a creative couple that fuse you with their beautiful Greekness. Meet the creative owners behind the fabulous Aenaon Villas on the Cycladic island of Santorini - they found a perch right on the edge of the Caldera.
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Dramatic settings, coastline and the famous caldera views, Santorini has equally hot beach settings including a red sand beach to complete the Aegean beauty.
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Discover the best beaches on the Small Cyclades islands of Koufonisia - Pano and Kato – separated by a narrow 200-metre channel, and both offering Cycladic beaches of beauty.
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Santorini is no ordinary island. Born of volcanic collapse, its black earth, sheer cliffs and hollow caldera create a Cycladic terrain where architecture, shadow and time are shaped by geology itself.
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Villa Charissa is a new addition to the hip, designer-cool Aenaon Villas Santorini. Built in the same traditional island’s cave house style, locally called “yposkafa”, Villa Charissa is a luxury suite that cascades into tiers all cocooned in a rigorous aesthetic of pure white.
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From vast Doric columns to tiny, intricately carved religious artefacts, beautifully smooth busts and imposing door lintels, the Museum of Marble Craft in Tinos reveals the surprising malleability of this revered material.
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Before Pompeii, there was Akrotiri—a lost Minoan metropolis frozen in time by Santorini’s volcanic wrath. Step into the past and uncover a civilisation buried in ash.
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Get the insider news and lowdown on what we've been up to, where we've been, and who we've met along the way. Be the first to discover new places and get the scoop on our favourites.