Greek Standings
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You can also hire a catamaran complete with skipper and chef to sail round the less-well-known Cyclades. Tick off Serifos and Sifnos, Naxos and Paros as well as the wild, mountainous island of Kythnos.
On a hillside with sea views, the villas are set within their own gardens and share a pool, open-air cinema and a large library. A villa for two costs from £2,200 a week, or £2,500 for four, with car hire but excluding flights (oneoffplaces.co.uk). Enjoy a massage using herbs grown on the estate, practise yoga in the pavilion, or walk to the nearby beach.
Built from stone, wood and river reeds, with white and earthy interiors, the cottages make the perfect base to get away from it all. For a similar eco-village in the wilderness feel, try Onar on Andros, just a couple of hours by ferry from Athens. In the protected wetlands of Ahla Valley, this collection of 14 cottages lies between a white-sand beach on a secluded bay and a rockpool fed by a waterfall.
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At twilight, we moved along to the next beach, Milopotamos, VOLOS KOMOTINI TAXI for sunset cocktails at a hillside bar overlooking the vast serenity of the sea at dusk. 'We Waiting the Night for Drinks', somebody had scribbled on the back of the menu. It might have been a complaint but in a setting like this, waiting felt like true luxur
A week's B&B costs from £647pp, excluding flights (cittadeinicliani.com). Swim in rocky coves a short drive away, and visit the Diros Caves - one is more than a mile long that can be explored during a 40-minute boat trip.
Villa company Scott Williams has many properties on Paxos, VOLOS KOMOTINI TRANSFER including the simple stone Koulka House, with a pool, sleeping four in the hamlet of Kastanida on the west coast. A week in Koulka House costs from £830, excluding flights (Lunar landscapes - and island-hopping in style
With 17 beautifully designed suites, villas and houses, it is an ideal place to relax, with plenty of privacy and space. In the Cyclades, The Rooster has just opened on the under-the-radar island of Antiparos, offering a luxuriously contemporary take on an authentic Greek hotel. Pictured, the view from a garden view villa
Visiting one of the archontiko at Vizitza, an hour's drive south from VOLOS KOMOTINI TRANSFER, I was enchanted by its combination of strict practicality and sheer beauty.
Animals were housed on the ground floor, the warmth of their bodies helping to heat the small, cosy winter rooms of the family above. Up a second flight of shiny chestnut-wood stairs is the glory of these sturdy hilltop palaces: a suite of arched and richly decorated summer rooms, their windows with long wooden balconies looking out across the terracotta tiles of village roofs to a fairytale panorama of hills, woods, and faraway glimpses of islands, beyond blue se Often converted these days for VOLOS LARISA KTEL use as hotels, these wonderful old stone houses were originally built by Greeks who made their fortunes in egypt and returned to make a show of their success, back in the Pelion.
A splendid new highway swoops up to a mountain-top ski resort - which by September is populated only by a couple of hoary shepherds attending obstreperous goat New houses have recently started to mushroom from the hillsides; bulldozers leave a red clay marker of their daily, inexorable progress. Driving up the mountain roads, it's impossible to miss the evidence of development.
The best way to imagine the incredible eastern seaboard is to picture a long series of immaculate horseshoe bays filled with glittering turquoise sea - just salty enough to let you float for hours without the slightest effort - and white soft sand or smooth round pebble The Pelion, then, offers two entirely different experiences: sea and mountain.
But it is worth it to be greeted by superb views of one of the most picturesque harbours in the Aegean, with its colourful red-roofed houses, all of which are listed buildings. Arriving at the laid-back Dodecanese island of Symi is part of the experience - too small for its own airport, VOLOS KORINTHOS TAXI it is reached by ferry from Rhodes.
A week-long trip, with flights, transfers and car hire, costs from £971pp (The tiny islands that will make a huge impression Ionian Island Holidays has a number of villas in the area, including the simply furnished two-bed Villa Jason, with private pool in the village of Horto.
A separate visit explores one of the six remaining monasteries once the day-trippers have left, ending with a magical view of the sun dipping behind the rocks. Six nights' B&B costs from £1,660pp with flights (Alternatively, follow the gods, who, according to Greek legend, chose the Pelion peninsula between Athens and how to get to Pelion Thessaloniki for their revelries, but which is blessedly free from mass tourism.
