Mykonos: an Island with a Difference by Matt Morley

Those who visited in the 1960’s still think of it as a gay hangout, whereas it obviously lost serious cool credentials for others once the package tourists were said to have arrived en masse.

Low-budget Italian holidaymakers tend to arrive by cruise ship and restrict themselves largely to Chora town centre and Paradise Beach though. Most visiting Greeks meanwhile opt for villas, sticking largely to themselves until evening time when they descend upon the main town in search of food, drink and music. It is the European elite however, who have been driving the island’s latest claim for tourist euros.

Demanding the same standards they are accustomed to at home, a network of high-end bars, hotels, restaurants and villa rental companies have sprung up to cater to their every fancy. None of this is new of course, wealthy tourists have been coming to Mykonos for decades; it is simply their numbers that have changed. More visitors, mean more demand, mean more supply. Bingo.

It is hard to say exactly when Mykonos began this latest period of rejuvenation, but an outpost of Nobu, several brand new boutique hotels and a direct British Airways flight from Heathrow are just some of the more obvious signs of what has been going on lately.

The town centre has admittedly become a bit of a muddle, mixing old with new, young with old, upscale with down, and many may find it too confusing to warrant a second visit. In terms of accommodation at least, one is firmly advised to opt for a bed removed from the melée in one of the picturesque bays nearby.

Kivotos Hotel
We enjoyed a fabulous two-night residency at the Kivotos, positioned on a neatly secluded hillside above Ornos Bay. Our view on the first morning involved not only the entrancing metallic blue of the Aegean Sea itself, but also a host of Riva Ferretti boats, multi-million euro villas and the occasional helicopter arriving from Athens. Not a bad start, we thought.

Meaning “Noah’s Ark” in Greek, the Kivotos is the brainchild of an extravagant local art collector who has incorporated a myriad of nautical objets d’art into an eminently tasteful aesthetic palette. Hard-to-find design pieces and unexpected details are everywhere you look, from the wooden beams salvaged from a real shipwreck incorporated into the exterior walls, to the fabulously glam Versace bathroom tiles and antique in-room telephones.

To appreciate the many charms of this hotel therefore, one really needs at least two nights, and even then there will still be new things to discover next time as the owner is forever adding and subtracting artworks from the eclectic mix. The core colour palette of white, blue and gold remains essentially the same however, as does the appeal of the secluded villa layout that is conveniently spread over several levels rising up the hillside.

The forty rooms and suites are divided up into various categories, but it is the VIP suites with their interconnecting bedrooms and outdoor plunge pools that offer the most appeal. We have also heard word of a brand new private villa complex that will be making its debut soon...