Greece welcomes you back with ‘open arms and doors’

With the country looking like one of the most likely options for a holiday abroad this summer, Nick Trend introduces our eight-page guide to lesser-known islands, hot new hotels, villas that thrill and dishes to tantalise

The sea, sparkling and shimmering in the distance, clear and warm close up. Those immaculate white-washed cubes clustered around a blue-domed church. Cheerful morning ferry rides round to the deserted sands on the far side of the island. The rhythms of beach life in the daytime, of the quayside restaurants in the evenings. The sunset walk to the viewpoint at the top of the hill through the dry, rustling grasses, ringing with the whirring song of the cicadas.

Images of Greece in summertime have an intoxicating, carefree clarity to them. Life somehow becomes so much less complicated and so much more relaxing on an island in the Aegean or the Ionian Sea. And while it retains simple, traditional appeal, the country has been upping its tourism game significantly in recent years. Investment at the top end of the market in particular has taken off. There has been a surge in the number of luxury hotels and smart villas, especially on well-known islands such as Corfu and Crete, Mykonos and

Santorini but also along the largely undeveloped coast of the Peloponnese.

So it is not surprising that Greece is turning out to be top of many people’s lists for a summer holiday this year. Tour operators and airlines are reporting strong bookings, and while uncertainty still haunts the exact date when we will be free to escape the northern cloud, Greece is also one of the best prospects for restriction-free travel for Brits.

Current infection rates are relatively low compared with other parts of

Europe, and the vaccination programme is going well. And because of our own high inoculation rates, the government is also keen to welcome us back. It will open its “arms and doors” to British travellers ahead of other countries, said the Greek tourism minister Haris Theoharis recently. Officially it is scheduled to reopen to tourism on May 14, three days before the earliest date which our own government has set for the restart of foreign holidays.

So, in anticipation, we open our eight-page special with Oliver Smith’s suggestions for lesser-known alternatives to some of the most popular islands, while Rachel Howard gives the low-down on some of Greece’s hottest new hotels. And to whet your appetite even further, we have chef Romy Gill’s account of her stay on Zakynthos, novelist Rachel Joyce’s hymn to Paxos, and my guide to finding the best of those idyllic island villas.