Stories

Passage of the day

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare

Lord Byron · Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

A long rectangular pool at low sun, flanked by timber decking and grey daybeds under thatched parasols, with an open thatch-roofed bar pavilion and a date palm beyond

OKU Kos: an adults-only village of cubist houses on its own beach

An adults-only house of 100 rooms and suites stands at Marmari on the north coast of Kos, laid out as a village of cubist houses, with three beachfront villas and a spa built on the island’s healing tradition

The restored stone tower and the buildings around it standing on the rocky edge of Limeni harbour, clear green water in the foreground and stone houses climbing the hillside behind.

The Mavromichalis tower above the water at Limeni

A render of a long hillside above a calm bay, with low terraced buildings stepped into the slope among scrub and olive, a rocky shore and a jetty below them, and open blue water in the foreground

EstatesPorto Heli

Six Senses is building into the hillside of a private bay at Porto Heli

A long dark pool and timber deck run beside a single-storey house in pale earthy render, with day beds, a pergola and a bare mountainous island across open sea

EstatesKoufonisia

Somanou, two houses and a stable above Ano Koufonisi

The stone tower at dusk, lit from within at the doorway, a crescent moon above it and olive trees moving in the wind on the slope below.

A Mani tower put back to work

Overhead aerial of two long concrete blocks on Kourouta Beach, two rust-red steel drums in the courtyard between them, a timber promenade along the sand and sunbeds beside the Ionian.

Eight rooms on the roofs of the wine tanks at Dexamenes

An aerial view of the villa's curving infinity pool on a planted terrace of stone and concrete, with Navarino Bay and its headlands beyond.

The one five-bedroom villa above Navarino Bay

A stone-paved arcade between the old market shopfronts, their doors and windows painted green, with olive trees in terracotta urns and a wrought-iron gate under the vault at the far end

The Old Markets: ten keys inside Symi’s listed Agora

Aerial view of a wide sand beach on Ano Koufonisi, shallow turquoise water filling the foreground and the whitewashed houses of the settlement rising on the dry slope behind

EstatesKoufonisia

The Taverna, a beachfront house of pool suites at Ammouda

Restaurant terrace under a timber pergola, white marble tables and grey chairs set along a stone parapet above the tiled rooftops of the lower town, open sea filling the horizon

GastronomyMonemvasia

A named kitchen inside the walls of Monemvasia

A long low concrete building on a sand beach seen from the shallow water, its glazed room fronts shaded by awnings, with two round rusted tanks rising behind the roofline under a clear sky

GastronomyOlympia

Dinner inside a 1920s wine tank on Kourouta Beach

A long white-roofed winery building standing among rows of trained vines on a hilltop, with a hazy valley and low ridges stretching behind it under a blue sky

GastronomyNafplio

Gaia Wines put its Nemea winery inside its own vineyard, at 550 metres

Stone houses with terracotta roofs stacked on a slope beneath a tall red and grey cliff face, lit low and warm, with cypress and olive trees between them.

GastronomyMonemvasia

The sweet wine Monemvasia lost, and the family that went looking for it

The Tsimbidi family started in 1997 with no vineyard and a wine nobody had made for five centuries. The appellation came in 2010, the first bottle in 2013.

A circular timber canopy over a dining terrace of laid tables and olive trees, two diners at the rail, the sun setting behind the headland across Navarino Bay

GastronomyPylos

The Greek room at Costa Navarino, where the garden sets the menu

The garden at the resort gate grows around 15 varieties of tomato, and Bertrand Valegeas has built a kitchen that will not cook anything the Messenian region cannot supply.

The long low house held between two stone retaining walls in a saddle on a dry Antiparos hillside at dusk, its lit pool green against the slope, with Antiparos village, the channel and Paros beyond

EstatesAntiparos

Aloni, the Antiparos house that disappears into its own hill

White cubic buildings and dry-stone terraces stepping down a bare slope to a deep blue bay, with the uninhabited islet of Nikouria across the water

The dry-stone walls came first: a 16-suite house on the bay of Nikouria

The hotel's rooftop terrace at sunset, rattan chairs and green cushions around low tables, with a stone neoclassical house, the open Aegean and distant islands beyond

Nine suites, nine marbles and a gallery in a Vaporia mansion

Marble-topped tables and wicker chairs on a lit terrace above the water at dusk, lanterns standing on the curved parapet and the hillside houses of Ermoupoli beyond

Boutique Hotel Ploes: eight rooms in a mansion built over the Syros sea

Low white volumes of the house running along one side of a long rectangular pool at dusk, grey umbrellas and loungers lined up on the paved edge, bare hillside and a pale sky beyond

A house at Mytakas where every suite has its own pool

The stone-built suites and villas of Gundari spread along the clifftop in low evening light, their flat roofs stepping over the ground, with the open Aegean below and beyond

EstatesFolegandros

The first luxury hotel on Folegandros, with its spa buried in the ground

Rooftop terrace with low black seating on dark veined marble behind a glass balustrade, looking over the tiled roofs of Ermoupoli to the Aegean and two low islands.

The Vaporia mansion Grigorios Paikos built, restored over seven years

An aerial view of a low earth-toned house set into a bare hillside above a coast road, with small pools on its stepped roof terraces and the Aegean beyond.

The Amorgos house that puts its guest rooms inside the hill

White Cycladic buildings and dry-stone walls on a hillside, a lawn, a thatched parasol and a pool in the foreground, with olive fields, a low white coastal town and open sea beyond

Inside the Naxian Collection, a Naxos house that grows its own

A lit olive tree in a stone bed on a marble terrace, sun loungers and an infinity pool behind it, and beyond them the enclosed bay and two bare headlands under a pink dusk sky

The village built above Vourni