Photo by flickr user bongo vongo
Sybaritic luxury resorts and upscale boutique hotels have made Santorini and Mykonos the jet-set islands for the 'it' crowd. If you're looking for a large luxury resort with a host of facilities and plenty of space, Mykonos is the island to pick, with, as a bonus, a deeply style-conscious island village replete with expensive jewellers, cigar bars and gourmet dining. Santorini has an embarrassment of romantic, smaller boutique hotels, most of them built since the 1990s; you'll find these facing west across the island's spectacular caldera around Thira, at Firostefani and Imerovigli, and most of all in the ridiculously pretty village of Oia on the island's north tip. Evacuated after the earthquake of 1953, Oia was almost a ghost village until the late 1980s, when a few of its unique cave houses (tunnelled, hobbit-style, into the soft volcanic rock) were converted. These are fabulous for couples, less than ideal for families as there isn't much room for kids to romp unselfconsciously - and the tiny beach is far below the village, at the foot of a near-vertical donkey stair. Mykonos and Santorini both have the advantage of direct international flights. Paros is slightly trickier to get to, requiring a ferry or a connecting flight from Athens, but once you're there it has a pick of resorts, sandy beaches, and a lively, labyrinthine main village that is just as pretty, if a good deal less pretentious than its neighbours. The order by which the hotels are listed bears no reflection on our preference.
Written by Robin Gauldie
