This Greek destination is the perfect mix of old and new – and the ultimate family -holiday spot

As Bath Times go, the shortage of a Churchillian Soak falls. But the three thousand -year -old terracotta -bath, covered with spiral motifs and roughly the size of a double Belfast Sinking, bustling with Majesty and myth.

Because it was here, I say that my family has introduced a morning tour by GreeceThe best preserved Mycenian palace, which Telemachus would be bathed by King Nestor’s youngest daughter after arriving in the pile of the older warrior desperately looking for news about his missing father Odysseus, still not at home from the Trojan War.

“There is not much room to lie down, right?” Is about Natation Felix, 13.

No, son, but with a panorama like the one who can blame Homer’s eldest and wise hero for installing a unit that requires you to stand upright?

With a radical view of Navarino Bay and the sparkling Ionian Sea, this BC bathroom looks out in the sky.

Olive Groves as far as the eye can see; Perfectly unspoilt sand. Not to mention the fact that the remains of a wine shop in an adjacent room are suitable for Dionysius itself.

No wonder, Legend has it, Nestor lived three generations.

Similar life -enhancing values ​​can be found a few kilometers away in the Costa Navarino Resort, a high -end collection of world -class hotels that comprises the first Mandarin Oriental of the Peloponnesis, which combines Homeric hospitality with a sensitivity to landscape and heritage.

Founded by Captain Vassilis Constantakopoulos, an owner of the shipping company and an enthusiastic environmental activist, was his vision to create a destination that would have sustainability and Messinian culture in his heart.

We stay in the W Costa Navarino, the newest addition to its luxury trunk, where the old is carefully mixed with the brand, new spanking.

The spacious central lobby is an example: soft gray local stone walls are compensated by shiny floor to ceiling Glass doors so that two perfectly named landing swimming pools such as sirens call, our luring for a swimming.

Without my glasses on, I spit what a collage seems to be of post-it nuts that cover the wall behind the reception desk.

It appears that it is a modern tableaux of linear-B, a tribute to the script discovered on clay tablets in Nestor’s Palace and the earliest known form of Greek.

Do you see children? Classics can Be cool.

“It’s here‘Evie admits, 17, so impressed by her trendy environment that her headphones of noise/parent, every minute of the three -hour drive from Athens airport, is eventually worn to her shoulders.

It can support thirty degrees, but there is no confusing the cool atmosphere among customers. If the luggage had not been, I would think we had come across a fashion shoot.

The pool table in the adjacent W -Lounge, the home base of the funky head bar and games room, has attracted Felix’s attention. I am attracted to the stylish racks that are littered with shiny design books and Objets d’Art. My husband, as always, has an eye on lunch.

Five minutes later we put in the tastiest Greek salad and a more host white while we sit on the terrace overlooking the sea.

Thanks to the island of Spaceria, which acts as a wind jacket, Navarino Bay is blissfully sheltered against the windfalls that even rasp the most pious grecophile.

I could sit here all day – if the hipsters allow me.

Our interconnected rooms, with a beautiful view of the sea, are light, clear and modern and are also very absorbent in the family -mess – a conclusion that I come after a massage in the spa that makes me calm down.

On the beach of the beach the air of the serenity continues – a fact that my husband lays the absence of little ones, because the hotel only allows guests older than 12 years. Parents of toddlers, your time will come. Parents of teenagers look forward to; Navarino has almost thought of everything for Costa.

Although days can be spent in a haze of water sports, golf (there are four spotless jobs), tennis, padel and pickleball, nights are enlivened by DJ sets in the central agora for which you can even rent your own statement. I keep this information for myself.

Because I had tasted dinner in Parelia, an informal restaurant on the beach with the kind of oversized wicker lanterns that mentally let me strip the dated kitchen spotlights at home, I have no further need for Evening Entertainment.

How could I have the best part of a rosemary bush and potatoes to die in the face of the gigantic pan of ambrosial lamb, garded with the best part of a rosemary bush?

The dish would enjoy a family comfortably for a week. Not for the first time I look at mine and wonder how half of them became vegetarian.

Felix, my only carnivore, flashes to the tower of meat for him and promises to do his best.

Our last day and we have been persuaded from our comfort zone for a bicycles/walking tour thanks to Navarino outdoors.

Our charming guide Dinos, an astro physicist who is about to start the olive picking season, cycles us to the beach of Voidokoilia via the flamingos of Limnothalassa Lake.

It is a beautiful place, framed by the ruins of Old Navarino Castle and asks him to break into song. I expect half a host of Greek folk melodie and am surprised when I recognize the song: Ed Sheeran’s Castle on the Hill.

It is vaguely surreal, but we applaud and he laughs. Again, with the lightest touch, old and modern alignment.