My very own Greek epic
(And that was just finding my way around the resort)
OH GOD, I thought, what a mistake. I am 50 years too late for this sort of thing. I should have come when I was 30, not when I was 80. I had arrived at the Porto Sani hotel in the north of Greece, and after checking in at reception, I went through to a bar area to have a welcome welcoming drink when I heard all this noise.
Ahead of me was one of those monster tropical lagoon pools, with water all over the place, little bridges, and a bar in the middle where you expect to see Del Boy with a cocktail stick in his silly drink.
It was almost midday and it was full of screaming blooming kids and some slightly overweight thirtysomething dads, one or two with tattoos, which I didn’t expect in a five-star resort. The mothers were flat out on the luxury loungers. All were clearly having a good time. Apart from me. I felt like a moaning Minnie.
When I was 30, with my three young children in tow, it would have been perfect, but now I am 80 (have I mentioned that?), little ankle-biters are the last thing I need when I am trying to swim.
I had researched Porto Sani and knew that it was one of the smartest hotels in all Greece, but during those first five minutes of horror on arrival I thought I had landed at a Butlin’s. The last time I stayed at Butlin’s was 1958.
Porto Sani forms part of Sani Resort, which has four different hotels set in more than 1,000 acres – and I did not appreciate at first all that it contains. The resort has everything to tempt and soothe and please jaded holidaymakers, of any age, of any aspiration. It was just bad luck that my first glimpse was of that crowded swimming pool.
The resort is set along a mileand-a-half stretch of lovely white sand, not that grey mud or pebbly shingle they have to make do with in much of Crete and Corfu. It is set on one of those three fin- gers of land, long lush peninsulas, that stretch out into the Aegean like the teats of a cow, up in the north of Greece in an area known as Halkidiki.
The Sani Resort has been owned by the same family since it was first developed in the 1970s. The biggest of the four hotels is Sani Beach, the only one with a conventional concrete block as its main building, which rather spoils some of the view down the main beach.
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It is a rather complicated set-up, and took me three days to get my bearings. But for an artificially created resort, it is surprisingly sylvan and spacious, with a lot of woods and open spaces. You can get away on your own, forgetting that there are a total of 20 restaurants, 17 bars, umpteen pools.
football pitches and watersports dotted around the resort, plus a large marina. Each of the four hotels has it owns spa. A fifth hotel, in one of the wild areas of the beach, is also planned.
The resort has a total of 800 rooms, and 1,400 staff at the height of summer. Every barman or waitress I talked to seemed to have a degree. They are bright and efficient.
Waking up at 7am for a swim in one of the lagoon pools before the anklebiters jumped in, I could see staff running around to get things ready for the new day.
In most countries experiencing awful economic conditions, the youngest and brightest emigrate, but young Greeks seem to like to stay at home with their families, helping their country in its hour of need, in this case by supporting the local tourism economy. During the four days I was there in May, the resort was 95 per cent full.
The staff all speak and write excellent English – though their handwriting is not always spot-on, which was why there was a crowd of giggling parents taking pictures of a handwritten notice outside a creche one day.
‘Enjoy the sex while we look after your baby,’ said the notice. Obviously they were trying to write the word ‘sea’, but a Greek ‘a’ does look very like an ‘x’.
Then at the bottom it promised ‘30 minutes complimentary’. What a bargain. Just what all parents like to resort to on their hols.