AFTER a 5am train for an early morning flight to Athens, followed by a two-and-a-half hour drive, arriving at Mystras Grand Palace Resort brings immediate gratification. Gracious staff provide the essential human touch while the hotel’s architecture, designed to attune with the region’s physical environment, creates a calming presence.
Framing the landscape, the Taygetus mountains to the west are so close it feels as if you could stretch out a hand and touch them.
Comfort Stay lives up to its name
Accommodation occupies two-storey blocks built of stone and wood that could look austere were they not set amidst the verdancy of olive trees. A pool, spa, gym and tennis courts are on hand and at the restaurant, Palataki, you can introduce yourself to the wines of Laconia, the name of this southeastern part of the Peloponnese.
In a glass, the wines are as crystal clear as water and have an elemental bouquet with a hint of citrus; they are not subtle or ultra-refined but worthy of appreciation and deserve to be better known.
Entering Hotel Ippoliti in Nafplio
For a meal outside the hotel, head for hillside Pikoulianika where the datura-decked restaurant Chromata lives up to its name with colourful arrays of flowering plants around and above its patio. The back wall of the homely interior is part of the mountainside while outside, with moonlight shining down on ancient and modern Sparta in the plain below, dining on the terrace has a romantic resonance.
The food is delicious: honeyed mushrooms and the house special – a salad with twenty one ingredients – followed by an orzo dish with a creamy cheese. The restaurant’s kitchen is tiny but produces wonders using vegetables, olives and quail eggs from the owner’s family farm.
Ktima Skreka enjoys a rustic setting indoors and out.
The historic sites of ancient Sparta and the abandoned Byzantine city of Mystras attract discerning travellers but this area is no holidaymaker’s mecca and perhaps this helps explain why the stellar destination spa, Euphoria Retreat, is located here.
It faces east, catching rosy dawn and morning sunshine, while enabling expansive views from the restaurant’s balcony of the Parnonas mountain range.
Relaxing poolside at Liakoto Hotel
The nucleus of the spa, its omphalos, finds bold architectural expression in a 25m-high hollow column around which four levels circulate. Reached by a spiral staircase, here you will find treatment and therapy rooms, a hydrotherapy and a yoga room, an outdoor and a heated indoor pool, a steam room, salt room, gym, Finnish sauna and, outdoors on the top level, a Californian hot tub.
The range of consultations, body treatments, massages, specialist therapies, cosmetic facials, hydrotherapy and fitness training that take place here fill over 25 pages of a menu and there is no mistaking its holistic and customized approach to wellbeing.
Oranges grow everywhere in Laconia, including the grounds of Mystras Grand Palace Resort
The restaurant reflects a philosophy of healthy living with vegetarian and vegan dishes alongside Greek and Mediterranean ones. If Euphoria Retreat’s dedicated approach to caring for the body begins to feel too monastic, it is only a10-minute drive to Pikoulianika where Ktima Skreka’s menu will excite one’s taste buds.
More than mere hors d’oeuvres, a selection from the dozen appetizers are the basis for a meal – the homemade and tangy tyrokafteri (a feta cheese dip) approaches the celestial – with the candy-coloured house salad and a dessert of orange baked pie. (Oranges are everywhere in Laconia and in workaday modern Sparta they fall off trees planted on the pavements.)
Ktima Skreka’s rustic charm, with tables set amidst olive trees and views of the Byzantine castle, brings the lovely experience of being in Greece without the hubbub of mass tourism.
The otherworldly spa pool at Euphoria Retreat
Further south lies the Mani peninsula, a region that only became known to those outside its borders until well into the 19th century. It has now been ‘discovered’ by travellers but in a low-key way and, aided by narrow winding roads through stone-built villages, Mani retains the sense of rugged remoteness that helps make it an alluring destination.
Kardamyli, on Mani’s west coast, is charming out of season: a place for chilling out, checking out tavernas and boutiquey shops, taking walks in the foothills of the Taygetus and concluding the day by watching the sun slowly set over the Messenian Gulf. The place to stay is Liakoto, assiduously managed without muss or fuss, where you choose a breakfast time and it is brought to your room the next morning on a huge tray.
Rooms have their own kitchenettes and from your balcony an olive hurled aloft will reach the lapping waters of the sea. Swimming and snorkelling beckons but so too does Liakoto’s pool and sunbathing area. With smart-looking restaurants like Tikla nearby, offering sea views and late closing, it is no surprise that visitors return annually to Kardamyli and stay at Liakoto.
The holidaymaker’s “capital” in the eastern Peloponnese is the coastal town of Nafplio, a pretty town with a Mediterranean character and the base for visiting unmissable Mycenae and Epidaurus, two centres of ancient Greek civilisation.
In the centre of town, Ippoliti Hotel, once a grand mansion built in neoclassical style, is suitably old-school: dark wood furniture, windows with wooden shutters, heavy curtains and marble flooring
Time to relax at Mystras Grand Palace Resort
Nafplio is also on its way to becoming a favourite haunt of foodies from Athens. At sophisticated 3Sixty the restaurant’s pizzazz announces itself with a delicious chocolate-coloured jam made from olives that comes with paximadia crunchy biscuits alongside the bread basket; although the menu is grill-oriented vegetarians are not shunned.
On another front, Savor offers cooking classes, wine tastings and customized Greek food experiences. It’s a class act as Chef Costas, bringing his experience from a Michelin-starred restaurant, crafts a meal in front of you.
Wines are matched, conversation flows and culinary knowledge is gleaned: the rock salt from Mani that complements olives, I learnt, is scraped off rocks with wooden spoons; mixing moustos (grape must) with balsamic vinegar and olive oil makes a perfect dressing for a salad of pomegranate, walnuts and anthotiro (a sweet, creamy cheese); and the rule for risotto is to cook it slowly and add onions towards the end.
View of the Messenian Gulf from Liakoto Hotel in Kardamyli
Arriving or departing from Athens at an awkward hour, Comfort Stay offers an enticing alternative to a night being spent in a soulless airport hotel.
Only 10 minutes from the airport and with its own transport, the laid-back setting around nine spotless rooms justify Comfort Stay’s self-description. The hotel’s good karma is enhanced by cocktails in the garden, food from the kitchen, availability of massages and thoughtful staff.
The only catch with euphoria is its tendency not to last long but a road trip in the Peloponnese helps prolong the joy.
by Sean Sheehan
Many airlines fly direct to Athens; for car hire, see Rhino Car Hire; for trains Stansted Express.