PELOPONNESE, GREECE
Double rooms from about £110
It might be hard to resist the siren call of the Greek Islands, but this daring, brutalist-style hotel is a reason to stick to the mainland. Nikos Karaflos was only 16 when his family business bought an abandoned Twenties winery amid the honeyed sands of Kourouta Beach, on a quiet stretch of the western Peloponnese. He thought it would be a good location for a hotel and, 17 years later in 2019, bold, original Dexamenes was opened, looming on the edge of the Ionian Sea like a land-bound, minimalist ocean liner.
Athenian architectural firm K-Studio has played on the site’s industrial aesthetic: steel, terrazzo and glass are combined with wood and canvas inspired by the area’s nautical history. Two lines of concrete blocks house the 34 rooms, hewn out of individual storage tanks, each one with a monastic sense of calm that never feels austere, partly due to the rich patina left by the wine on the interior walls. The rooms to book are the nine facing the sea, and there is also a three-bedroomed neo-classical-style villa directly on the beach.
Days are spent barefoot in the sand, then feasting taverna-style on the terrace under strings of lights, perhaps on a carbonara with a Greek twist or grilled dorade with salsa verde, accompanied by an impressive list of local wines. Spa treatments, meditation, yoga and sound-healing are offered in one of two large, weather-worn steel silos, and there are candlelit dinners and sleep-outs under the stars. This is a long-held dream turned strikingly original reality.