Vitae Lifestyle

Edit No.24 — Five Greek Islands, Five Ways of Doing Things Well

Drakos Taverna, Ios; Gundari, Folegandros; the Palace of the Grand Master, Rhodes; Durrell's White House, Corfu; and Ikos Aria, Kos.

Five Greek islands, five different answers to the same question: what does it look like to do one thing well for a long time?

Edit No.24 opens on Ios, at the far southern end of Mylopotas beach, where the Drakos family has run the same fish taverna on the same stretch of sand since 1962 — long before there was a road to it, and long before the beachfront family taverna became a category people sought out. The setting is the destination; the food is what arrives while you're in it.

It continues on Folegandros, a Cycladic island still reached only by ferry, where Gundari — designed by Athens studio Block722 from stone excavated on site — has become the island's first five-star property. Twenty-seven low-lying suites and villas built into eighty acres of clifftop, with wellness, gastronomy and sustainability treated as foundations rather than a spa menu.

Then to Rhodes, and the Palace of the Grand Master at the top of the Old Town — a 14th-century Knights Hospitaller fortress, devastated by earthquake in 1481, and rebuilt in the 1930s under the Italian occupation as a romanticised version of itself. A monument to two very different periods in the same rooms.

On Corfu, at Kalami on the north-east coast, The White House is the working taverna in the house where Lawrence Durrell lived and wrote Prospero's Cell — still run by descendants of the Athenaios family who took the Durrells in ninety years ago. The building has barely changed; the room where the book was written is still upstairs; the fish still comes off boats tied up outside.

And on Kos, Ikos Aria — a 47-acre all-inclusive on Kefalos Bay whose signature move is to hand you an electric MINI and pay for dinner at a proper taverna down the road. It is the modern resort quietly conceding that the best thing it can do for you, some nights, is send you off-site.

Five islands, five very different operations, and the same underlying question — what it looks like to do one thing well, and to keep doing it.

In this edit

LIVING — Gundari, Folegandros

Gundari — Built From the Cliff It Stands On

Folegandros's first five-star resort — twenty-seven suites and villas built from stone excavated on site, designed by Athens studio Block722, with a spa cut into the earth below.

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PLACE — Drakos Taverna, Ios

Drakos Taverna — Sixty Years on the Same Stretch of Sand

A family fish taverna at the far southern end of Mylopotas beach, run by the same family since 1962. Sixty years on one stretch of sand, and one of the better places on Ios to watch the sun go down.

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EXPERIENCE — Palace of the Grand Master, Rhodes

The Palace of the Grand Master — A Fortress That Isn't Quite What It Claims

A 14th-century Knights' fortress at the top of Rhodes Old Town, ruined by earthquake and rebuilt in the 1930s under Mussolini as a romanticised version of itself.

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PLACE — The White House, Kalami

Durrell's White House — The Room Where Prospero's Cell Was Written

A working taverna on the water at Kalami that happens to be the house where Lawrence Durrell lived and wrote Prospero's Cell — still run by descendants of the family who took the Durrells in ninety years ago.

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LIVING — Ikos Aria, Kos

Ikos Aria — The All-Inclusive That Sends You Off-Site

A 47-acre all-inclusive on Kefalos Bay whose signature move is handing you an electric MINI and paying for dinner at a real taverna down the road.

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Each article in this edit is experienced first-hand and written independently. All Vitae Lifestyle articles are archived under Lifestyle and can be read out of sequence.

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