Xenodocheio Milos

There are some cities where you want to stay somewhere that feels part of the action – a party-ready place to be seen without the bother of having to brave the traffic, or indeed the weather. Athens – one of the sunniest and most walkable capitals in Europe – is, in my opinion at least, not one of them. The sheer energy of it, with café tables crammed on to every inch of pavement not filled by crowds of history-hungry tourists, may cause the visitor newly arrived from the peace of the islands (me) to crave a still small point of calm to retreat to at the end of the day. Not that I’m not cool, obviously. Just middle-aged and quite tired.

Boutique hideaway Xenodocheio Milos doesn’t immediately seem to fit the bill, given it’s just round the corner from busy Syntagma Square and also houses the Athens outpost of owner Costas Spiliadis’ global chain of high-end seafood restaurants. (Kris Jenner is a big fan of the New York branch, which might tip you off that this is not your average chain restaurant.) In fact, however, the two operations feel quite separate; the hotel is accessed via a discreet lobby next door, a narrow space so understated I find myself feeling just a tiny bit disappointed as we go through the formalities of check-in – though sleek, it doesn’t scream luxury of the kind I’d hoped for after an early start and a high-speed ferry ride.

Thankfully the plush carpets and soft lighting upstairs are more promising…and as soon as I see the room itself I know Milos and I are going to be very happy together. The lofty ceiling, tall windows, and – best of all – snowy expanse of crisp white linen on the bed, uncluttered by fussy throws or cushions, lead me to suspect I could spend a couple of days in here sampling the room service while my partner takes in the sights alone – after all, if they’ve survived for 3,000-odd years, they’ll surely keep for a few more.

Indeed I’m so enamoured by the bathroom (deep blue and clad in the same marble used in the Acropolis apparently – yes, I’m impressed) that I take several pictures as inspiration for future renovations, even though the loo alone is the size of my entire London flat. And then I notice the art, a selection of extremely tasteful male nudes draped across rocks and ruins, and spend a pleasant five minutes further studying them closely in the hope of spotting a stray willy. Clearly, Milos and I are on the same aesthetic wavelength.

As someone who travels a lot for work, I fancy myself as a bit of a connoisseur of hotels and their various eccentricities, so I then go round looking for things to criticise while my partner flicks through the TV channels and makes uninterested noises. This room does not, I’m afraid, offer much in the way of fodder. The shower, which is huge, has a shelf that’s wide enough for the toiletries, and doesn’t look likely to flood. There are plenty of plug points within easy reach of the bed, a decent coffee machine, a full-length mirror and a proper hairdryer in close proximity, and a generous window seat from which to watch Athens go about its merry business from a safe distance. (After spending the next morning at the packed Parthenon, I’m very tempted to sneak back to our room to read my book in peace, instead of moving on to look at Byzantine bracelets at the Benaki Museum; but, because I am trying hard to be a more cultured person, I persevere.) 

The gym, which I peep into but don’t actually use, because we’re here to improve our minds not our bodies, is small but notably well equipped. And, though we don’t brave the restaurant for dinner, because I’m more of a ‘spilling-onto-the-pavement taverna with a jug of retsina wine’ kind of woman (and also I’ve brought entirely the wrong clothes to mingle with Athenian glitterati), we do go in for breakfast – make sure this is included in your room rate, as even a bowl of cornflakes is €14 otherwise, and trust me, you’re going to want the full Greek option. We also pop into the bar, which supplies my only – small – gripe about the hotel. So blissfully cocooned is the accommodation from the real world that one can only access said bar by going outside onto the street and round the corner; when surely the whole point of a session in the hotel bar, we agree as we sink a post-prandial glass of mastiha liqueur, is that you can just roll back to your room afterwards. Especially when that particular room was so very hard to leave in the first place.