The best hotel in the world

      It sits atop a cliff above a grotto filled with the impossibly blue waters of the Aegean. Its blindingly white sandblasted hulk is small—the hotel has maybe 50 rooms—but it glows with the warmth of welcome. It is, we think, the best hotel in the world.

      Okay, it’s not the Ritz or the Ritz-Carlton or the Ritz Something-or-Other. Not the George V or the Plaza or the someplace-in-Beverly Hills. Not the Rosewood Hong Kong, which has been rated the best hotel in the world by the kind of organizations that rate the best hotels in the world. This hotel we’re talking about is just a fairly modest family-run place on an island that’s not one of the famous islands in the Greek grouping that’s called the Cyclades. It’s not renowned. It’s not luxurious, it’s not expensive, but to us, it’s the best.

We’ve traveled a bit. We’ve stayed at some really good hotels and some not so good. One where the king-size bed was strewn with rose petals and you could heat the bathroom floor and one where you couldn’t open the bathroom door without standing on the bed.

      This particular hotel we’re talking about wee found sort of by chance. It was our first trip to Greece half a dozen years ago and we were going to Santorini, of course, because you have to, and were looking for a reasonably nearby island to extend the trip and get a different perspective. We wanted somewhere that wasn’t as touristy as Santorini but that was pretty and interesting. We wanted a place to stay that would fit our budget and give us a sense of really being on a non-Disneyfied Greek island.

      We found an island that was a short ferry ride away. It was big enough to have beaches and mountains, archeological sites and quaint villages, lots of restaurants and places to stay. So, we started looking at online sites where places to stay on the island were reviewed. This hotel, we saw, had thousands of reviews, and one after the other, they said more or less the same thing.

      I called to my wife: “you’ve gotta see this.”

      And what she saw was reviewer after reviewer saying—and I’m only slightly paraphrasing here—“I’ve traveled all over the world and I’ve never felt as welcomed as I do here. This is my favorite hotel in the world.”

      So, of course, we booked it. And were quite ready to be disappointed, to be honest. How could this small, modest place possibly live up to its reviews, to its online reputation?

      It did.

      When we arrived, we were greeted with broad smiles and friendly joking. Our bags were quickly delivered to our room and we were asked if we’d like a glass of wine, of “the best wine in the universe.” We said, of course, sure, and went out to the patio, that patio overlooking the grotto and in the distance the ruins of a 6th-century BC temple to Apollo. And we drank this lovely, light white wine, produced by the family that owned the hotel, and then we ate the wedge of fig tart they brought out to go with the wine, and my wife said, and this time I’m not paraphrasing: “I’m never leaving.”

      Well, we ultimately did leave, but over the last six years we’ve been back multiple times. Why?

Well, part of it of course is the desire, as we get older, to return to something familiar—to know where everything is, to avoid any untoward surprises.

But this place was more than a security blanket.

      The introduction—the whole wine-on-the-patio thing—was only the introduction. What sold us was the enthusiastic greetings, the hugs every time we returned, the joking, the friendliness, the graciousness, the always-going-beyond ethos of the place.

      The night we arrived in torrential rain and instead of braving the storm and going out to dinner, ordered a pizza delivered? They set up a formal table in the dining room, with drinks and a tray full of olives and a few vegetables. The day our current-converter plug died and they said, no problem—we have lots of them here; we’ll find one that fits. Or the time my wife fell and scraped her knee and they found bandages and antiseptic and did whatever was necessary. And kept checking on her condition in the days that followed.

      There is, also, to be sure, the morning buffet, Mama’s breakfast, made fresh every day, 40 or 50 items lining the tables, so many variations on spanokopita, such a glorious display of Greek bounty.  

      And the rooms are quite nice, make no mistake, particularly the ones with balconies overlooking the sea. There are nice amenities throughout, a small indoor pool, a whirlpool and sauna, good shampoos in the bathrooms and so on. But you definitely can get larger, more palatial, more luxurious accommodations elsewhere.

      But elsewhere you won’t get the people you get here. They remember you. They are genuinely glad to see you. They hug you when you depart and if you are returning, they frequently hug you when you arrive. They take selfies with you. They smile and laugh all the time. They joke with you. They run across the breakfast dining room to say hi when you arrive. They want to know what you’ve been doing, how you are.

      This isn’t stuff you learn in hospitality school. This is from the heart, from hiring people who genuinely care. It’s the front desk but also the driver who picks you up at the port and tries to teach you a bit of Greek and the chambermaid who cleans your room but rushes first to embrace you.

      And so, when you’re there, you truly feel like family. At least we do.

      So, this is where you’re expecting that I will give you the name of this exceptional place, except I’m not sure I want to do that. I’m not sure I want the hotel overrun with people who want to say they’ve stayed at the best hotel in the world just so they can say that. But since I’ve gone this far, let me just tell you that this hotel does indeed sit high above a blue grotto.

      That’s your clue.