10 hours ago
This untapped Greek island is a stylish alternative to Santorini
The luggage said it all. Into Santorini airport arrivals swept a sculpted troupe of New Yorkers, fresh-faced off the connecting flight from JFK, 'priority' luggage tags bobbing upon stainless steel suitcases that were wheeled to blacked-out Mercedes SUVs. Each couple were separately whizzed off to a luxury hotel, likely with nightly room rates in the house-deposit price range.
Meanwhile, as they were checking in, we had made it to Santorini's tiny port, our scruffy luggage looking like a dog's dinner on the concrete as we unglamorously removed socks and trainers from puffed-up plane feet before boarding our no-shoes boat. We weren't staying on Santorini. Instead, we were leaving instantly and sailing to Folegandros. This tiny Cycladic island has no airport or cruise ship terminal, and there's only one daily hour-long ferry from Santorini, which we had missed. We had to jump on a little local taxi vessel instead. Luckily, we kept our luggage light.
But that's exactly what we wanted. While Santorini is dealing with overtourism, Folegandros is rarely visited. You'll know other small Cycladic islands have recently found fame too — Sifnos, Milos and Tinos among them — all of which are beautifully untouched and 'as lovely as Santorini 25 years ago'. However, a new hotel on Folegandros, Gundari, wants to offer the serenity of those secret Cyclades islands as well as stylish digs you would expect to find on Santorini.
There's a reason Folegandros lags in the Greek-island tourism race. Take apart the Greek names 'Fole-gandros' or 'Gun-dari' and both derive from the idea of rocky places, or hard land. That was certainly evident as we bumped along the stony track to Gundari, eliciting glances from nonplussed mountain goats and lone donkeys. (Later in the trip we couldn't find a taxi driver who would agree to take on this track, so be sure to hire a 4×4 or use Gundari's private transfer buses to get around; more on those later.) Folegandros has only one road and no car mechanic or hospital, so the lack of development, having just come from hyper-stylised Santorini, was marked.
As we jolted along, Gundari emerged on the horizon, as if in a desert heat haze. That's because the hotel — all 27 villas, main building and outposts — is built entirely with the island's rust-coloured stone. No white Cubist angles or Cycladic blue domes here. It's a pleasing effect, with the additional use of woven willow canopies, olive trees and wooden screens making Gundari look as if it has grown naturally out of the rock.
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The hotel isn't on the shore but on a clifftop with screensaver Aegean views; on this side of the island guests are more protected from the Meltemi, a strong northerly wind that blows through the Greek islands in summer. It may sound a hardship to be without both beach and buzz on a Med holiday, but Gundari has a spectacular infinity swimming pool to compensate, and every room has its own private pool too. As for buzz, there is Orizon for dinner under the stars within a pretty walled garden, overseen by Lefteris Lazarou and Nikos Michailidis. The rockfish soup and squid with basil pesto were so good I ordered the same dishes on consecutive nights. Over the next 24 months, Gundari will convert a derelict farm building into a small sundowner bar and open a beach-club style restaurant on the port.
But Gundari isn't really about buzz. Of the couples staying there — we were the only guests with children — few banded together to socialise, and bedtime was early. Which, if I'm not making myself clear, was a good thing. 'Our lot tends to avoid Santorini like the plague,' the owner Ricardo Larriera told me. 'Folegandros visitors are real loyalists; they've been coming here for years for peace and quiet, so we're not changing the island. We're just giving them somewhere new to stay.'
Unusually for the owner of a five-star resort, Larriera lives on site throughout the season (May to October). The Australian is passionate about Folegandros, which became clear when he heard that a German guest loved Greek honey and promptly drove off to buy her a jar direct from the source ('You'll love it! If you don't try it, it'd be like me visiting Germany and drinking Japanese beer all week!').
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Larriera's business partner is Eleftherios 'Terry' Seremetis, whose family hails from Folegandros. Ask to see a copy of The Island of Folegandros, a short printed history edited by Seremetis. In his foreword, he recounts the extraordinary story of his great-grandfather Eleftherios, who drowned in the waters off Folegandros when a rescue mission went horribly wrong. That was more than a century ago and this Gundari project marks Seremetis's return to the island. Gundari is obviously a labour of love rather than the first property in an empire.
This was proven by Larriera, who was forever urging guests to get out and see the island, when he could have just as easily encouraged them to stay put and rack up a big hotel bill. On our first day we took the hotel minibus to Agali Beach (two trips daily; £8pp each way), a shingle cove with a handful of tavernas and B&Bs built into the steep hillsides overlooking the bay. It was absurdly idyllic for almost June — just two families playing in the shallows — and with a Mythos beer and Greek salad for £10. But it was basic too, with no shade (hikers walk over the cliff to Agios Nikolaos for shade under its pines) and an unkempt shoreline that's no match for a Balearic beach. The real pull is the peace; it was mind-boggling to compare this hushed scene with the crowds on Santorini, only 50 minutes away.
On another evening, we took the Gundari transfer to Chora, the island's pedestrianised old town. This truly is Cycladic fantasy made real, with a fortified 12th-century castle to explore, tiny white-domed churches on every square, and cats posing beside bougainvillea as if they've had social-media training. Chora is also thriving, which is welcome compared with the remoteness of Gundari and the rawness of Agali Beach. Local businesses have agreed on a matching paint palette of greys, greens and Mediterranean blues, and each is marked by hand-painted wooden signs. Restaurants use only timber chairs and tables — no plastic stackables in Chora, thank you very much — and planters froth over with lavender and jasmine, the result being a postcard-perfect village that demands Mamma Mia 3 be made, if only because this would provide the dream location. On a warm midweek evening in May, the place was alive, locals and tourists alike drinking Greek white wine at open-fronted bars and sharing mezze as the moon rose higher in the sky.
But there was one more encounter we needed to become true Folegandros locals, Larriera said. Tp experience total island immersion, we needed to meet Poly. Poly Gkiouri was born on Folegandros — her dad was the island's postman — and after years living in Athens (where she delivered post herself), she returned to the island and became a tour guide. When it comes to Folegandros, there's nothing she doesn't know and after only 30 minutes in her company — in which time we had shared a cigarette with the black-robed priest Papa Costadinos, gained private access to Panagia church, otherwise open only twice a year, and heard stories of pirates burnt by boiling oil — I knew she was the best person to help us tp get under the skin of the island. You can book a tour with her through Gundari (from £34pp;
As we lurched along the track back to Gundari, Gkiouri still telling tales of hardship — stranded shepherds and, more recently, water shortages — I realised that was the island's attraction for travellers. You have to work hard to reach Folegandros; you have to work hard to get around the island; and you have to work hard if you want to access the best beach. But the rewards are worth it: no crowds, no noise, no traffic, no selfie sticks, no dress code, no queues, no need for restaurant reservations.
When I thought back to the swarms of international arrivals at Santorini airport, there to see and be seen — and that the island welcomes 40 visitors for every single one who alights on Folegandros — it made me appreciate that such tranquillity is priceless. And with no airport, no cruise ship terminal and only one road, that doesn't look like changing on Folegandros any time soon, even with a new luxury hotel.
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Katie Bowman was a guest of Gundari, which has B&B doubles from £372 ( and Elegant Resorts, which has five nights' B&B from £1,450pp, including flights, car and ferry transfers and a boat tour around Folegrandos (
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