A charming boutique hotel on a hidden Greek island

Athina Kontos

Through rustling branches of a Weeping Fig tree, streaks of warm morning light spill across the courtyard of the Aristide Hotel. Water trickles down a featured stone wall and a balmy sea breeze ruffles a border of delicately planted miniature palms, softly enveloping the tables neatly laid for breakfast. It’s a discreet pocket of serenity, views of the sparkling Aegean Sea peek from the cobbled hillside streets outside and wafts of freshly ground coffee drift from a tall doorway to the chic hotel bar. We are offered bowls of Greek yoghurt and local honey–jewelled with fresh fruit and mint, eggs and Saganaki cooked several different ways and a courgette ‘pie’, because in Greece, there is rarely an occasion without one.

This new, boutique art hotel–a former Neoclassical mansion house–is a sanctuary of just nine rooms and suites, overlooking Ermoupoli port on the lesser known Cycladic island of Syros. There’s an immediate feel of ancient glamour, with architectural relics from the building’s days as a shipowner’s home, spritzed with teal velvet and art deco furniture. The ceilings are crane-your-neck high on every floor and tall columns announce a grand marble staircase up to an elegantly styled, pea-green lobby. It’s a fine spectacle, romantic and fun, carefully curated but not contrived and brimming with personality. The rooms–each unique in soft pinks, yellows and aquamarines–are generously spacious, with sufficient room for gliding around in a dressing gown while enjoying the amenities package of hair straighteners and a bluetooth speaker. Each bedroom is finished with statement pieces of art, modernist lighting and plants; and in my room, The Tinos Suite, the vast, green marble shower is almost an art installation in itself. Some suites come with their own terraces for private sun-basking, and even a deep, blue plunge pool to reset the nervous system after a night of Ouzo.

It’s a single-use plastic free zone, and details like ceramic shampoo bottles, bamboo toothbrushes and natural, cruelty-free soap can be found all over the hotel. These touches are part of a larger sustainability commitment made by our host, the hotel’s owner Oana Aristide. The pledge sees collaborations with local organic food producers, growers, creators and tradespeople, and the beginnings of a ‘baby forest’ to offset their carbon emissions within the hotel industry. It’s clear that Oana, also a published author, is soulfully dedicated to Syros, its history and people. She runs and owns the hotel in partnership with her sister Jasmin and the two have forged an entire cultural and artistic experience, endeavouring to offer travellers an immersive adventure on this island of blended Kastri, Byzantine, Arab and Venetian history. Awaiting you could be an early boat trip from the turquoise waters of Kini to Grammata, or a lamplit, evening tour of Hermoupolis Heritage textile museum; a waterside lunch of grilled octopus and stuffed courgette flowers in between.

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From the breakfast table, a slow saunter down the hillside steps of Vaporia is a walk through time. Abandoned, salt-eroded Neoclassical mansions stand quietly crumbling among pastel walls and balconies dripping with fresh flowers. Framed homages to saints hang beside doors and on street corners, and faded shutters clutch old windows looking out to sea. Each step down is its own melting pot of derelict beauty and colourful island life. At the bottom, an idyllic swimming platform reveals itself at the foot of the azure-domed Agios Nikolaos Cathedral, looking up in the direction of the island’s historically opposing twin hills, Ano Syros the ‘Catholic’ and Hermoupolis the ‘Orthodox’. Each morning, the locals ritualistically power on into the gently lapping Aegean waves for an invigorating dip. It's desperately fresh, but entirely lovely at this time of year, and visitors are ardently encouraged to do the same–a challenge we accept several 9ams in a row.