91 Athens Riviera, The Resort

For anyone accustomed to the long, weather-dependent ferry transfers to Greece’s beautiful and remote islands, finding the Athens Riviera at the end of a half-hour taxi ride from the city centre feels like unlocking a holiday cheat code. Having returned from one of those beautiful islands a month earlier — cancelled ferry, delayed second ferry, missed flight — it was hard to process that there we were at 91 Athens Riviera, The Resort, sipping welcome glasses of Greek mountain tea beneath eucalyptus trees and feeling a million miles from the pulse of Athens, but really close enough to allow for a flying weekend visit. 
 
We arrived at the end of September, just in time for the last throes of summer — and the last of the summer’s figs, piled in jammy wedges over Greek yoghurt for breakfast. But the British weather followed us, so instead of the beach we spent a lazy first afternoon swimming zigzags across the adults-only heated outdoor swimming pool, then baking ourselves in the sauna, hammam and indoor hydro-pool.

The resort’s footprint is more boutique than sprawling. Everything from the tennis courts at one end to the coastline at the other is within a few minute’s walking distance, but that doesn’t stop the team in white-and-green-striped T-shirts from materialising in golf buggies before you’ve walked more than a handful of steps towards the front gate. As well as the spa and Barbarossa restaurant, which is a destination in the evenings, there’s a members' clubhouse, and the club element brings local people for breakfast meetings and sessions in the gym (very swish, from what I saw through the glass, but not my idea of a holiday activity), so it’s not only tourist’s accents that you’ll hear at lunch. 

Lush planting softens the hard edges — not that there are many, the curves of the cabanas nodding to Mount Hymettus on the horizon. The architecture is gentle enough that a stray black cat who lived here before the resort was built decided to stay when it was finished; the staff call her Riviera. 

After eating our pick of that day’s catch in a local restaurant recommended by the concierge (with a bottle of local wine recommended by the chef) and strolling home, we fell asleep to the sound of rain falling on the roof. 

That sound of rain on canvas was one of the very few reminders that the offering here is, ostensibly, glamping. My only personal point of comparison was glamping at music festivals, which was no comparison whatsoever; it’s easy to forget that these are tents at all, and not just because the ceilings are so high. Our cabana had its own deck and plunge pool tucked underneath an olive tree; inside was every amenity you’d find in a spa hotel, from yoga mats and foam rollers to Augustinus Bader miniatures, plus a walk-in shower and separate loo (fully soundproof, tested investigative-journalist style by shouting from inside). The super-king-size bed is wrapped in gauzy curtains, so we left the heavier blackout curtains open, in the hope that the sun would come out to wake us the next day.

By midday, after another session in the sauna and a 90-minute aromatherapy massage (switched on the spot from the deep-tissue originally booked, since we’d opened the bottle of rosé left on ice in our room the night before), the sun broke through. We followed the curving path past the miniature lagoon and through clouds of rosemary bushes down to the Aegean Sea.

The shallows of Voula Beach stretch out far enough that I didn’t have to choose between reading or swimming: waist-deep with my paperback, I traced a path along the coastline in slow steps along the sand. The water was still, and so warm at the end of a long summer that it was only the appearance of a Greek salad, heaped calamari and another glass of rosé — all summoned at the touch of the buzzer found beneath each umbrella — that lured me out again, to eat lunch with a sea view interrupted only by the occasional sailboat. 

Having lingered there until the sun set, we decided to make the most of our proximity to the city for dinner on our last night, nipping in for cocktails, then a late table for dinner at a 95-year-old Athenian institution where the wine is still served by the half litre and the bill — a pencil list of figures — still settled in cash. Some of our fellow guests, Americans used to driving longer distances than that for their morning coffee, treated 91 Athens Riviera, The Resort as if it were in Athens proper, exploring the city with this as their base for a week; for us it was a coastal spa break, but with the luxury of a spontaneous dinner in town, before a peaceful night’s sleep (though I almost missed the sound of the rain on our second night), and then back home in time for work in the morning.