As ancient as Greece might be, it’s a country that’s always looking ahead. With a slew of exciting hotel openings and the 70th anniversary of the prestigious Athens Epidaurus Festival, the Greek capital is coming into its own as a year-round destination. Meanwhile, northern Greece is becoming a new hot spot, while popular island staples like Santorini, Mykonos, and Crete are bringing in fresh lodgings far away from the crowded sunset selfie spots, trendy restaurants that go beyond Tripadvisor-topping souvlaki joints, and new museum shows with never-before-exhibited treasures.
From serene underground accommodations to bona fide Greek tavernas to ancient tragedies performed in amphitheater ruins, here’s everything you need to know about what’s new and interesting in Greece right now.
Exciting hotel openings in Athens, Santorini, and Crete
A rooftop bar, restaurant, and dipping pool is set to open this summer at Ace Hotel & Swim Club in the Athens Riviera.
Photo courtesy of Ace Hotel & Swim Club
A steady flow of fresh new digs is gracing Athens, including the Ace Hotels’ Greek debut in October 2024. Located in the resort suburb of Glyfada on the Athens Riviera, retro-styled Ace Hotel & Swim Club Athens embraces brutalist architecture and oozes poolside glam. Expect stark white walls, vintage furniture, and contemporary tapestries. One of Greece’s most highly anticipated hotel debuts is the Conrad Athens the Ilisian, due to open in November on the site of the former Hilton Athens in the upscale Ilisia neighborhood. The building has hosted royalty and movie stars since the early 1960s; its iconic facade reliefs depicting elements of Greek hospitality, including the goddess Athena, have been carefully preserved. The new hotel will feature 280 rooms and suites, 55 private residences, and 10 restaurants and bars serving a range of cuisines from high-end Japanese to signature Greek dishes with French flair.
Meanwhile, a few steps from the Acropolis and the treasure-filled Acropolis Museum is the Gargaretta Townhouse, a lovingly restored neoclassical residence built in 1910, now available for bookings for up to 14 guests. Owned and operated by the Herodion Hotel, this sophisticated abode features high ceilings, a leafy courtyard, and an alfresco dining space for entertaining.
In Santorini, the adults-only boutique hotel the Duchess is scheduled to open in the fall on the tiny Thirassia islet, away from the caldera cliffside throngs. Its 11 suites have open-plan rooms dressed in burnt amber, dove gray, and cream, framed by arches and offering views of the Aegean. If you’re yearning to stay in the distinctive whitewashed town of Oia, Santo Mine is marking its second season with LEED Gold certification recognizing its sustainability commitment, partly thanks to a circular waste system, green roofs, and natural fertilizer-grown produce.
Crete has seen plenty of new hotels in recent years but none so unique as Tella Thera, situated on an olive-tree hillside facing Chania’s Kissamos Bay and due to open in July. This 21-suite boutique hotel borrows from the semi-subterranean villa trend seen on islands like Milos and Antiparos, where stone-built residences are designed to integrate with the landscape, promoting natural cooling. The hotel has soothingly earthy interiors, minimal-waste, and plant-forward cuisine at on-site restaurant Anemoia. Its spa features a sleep-enhancing magnesium pool (which uses minerals to help you sleep better) and chromotherapy showers (which use light therapy for mental and physical recovery).
The clifftop monasteries at Meteora are becoming a popular destination, with more travelers heading to northern Greece.
Photo by Makasana Photo
Adventure through trending northern villages
Northern Greece is an up-and-coming mainland destination, thanks in part to UNESCO’s classification of the traditional stone-built Zagori villages as a place of Outstanding Universal Value in 2023. Active travel company Butterfield & Robinson offers an invigorating way to explore the wider region. Its seven-day biking itinerary in northern Greece includes a visit to a walnut harvester and an old-school coffee shop where elders deliver history lessons and share local stories. You can also admire Meteora’s clifftop Byzantine monasteries, go truffle-hunting in the Epirus region’s Zagori mountain villages, and raft down the Vikos-Aoos National Park’s Voidomatis River.
After success in Athens, the Cookoovaya restaurant now has another location on Antiparos island.
Photos courtesy of Cookoovaya
Dine at modern restaurants serving traditional Greek dishes
Periklis Koskinas is a stickler when it comes to seasonality. The soft-spoken chef-restaurateur, born and raised on the Ionian island of Corfu, has carried over this philosophy from his perennially popular Athens fine dining restaurant Cookoovaya to its Cycladic sister with the same name, which quietly opened on Antiparos island last summer. Celebrities show up in shorts, fashion house chiefs step off super-yachts, and globe-scouring foodies book ahead to dine at this mellow tamarisk-shaded seaside spot within the newly revamped Beach House Antiparos. The garlicky Bianco and tomatoey Bourdeto fish stews are Corfiot menu staples for good reason, but don’t miss summer veggie medley briam or goat with potatoes slow-roasted in a wood-fired oven.
Last September, self-taught Greek American chef Ari Vezene opened Manári in Athens, his ode to the city taverna. Located on Agion Theodoron Square, the restaurant swiftly earned acclaim from exacting locals for its respect for tradition, affordability, and especially its open-fire grilled mutton chops. “It’s our take on Greek grilling seen through the lens of 2025,” he says. “We’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible for our audience, with hints of today to make it special while keeping everything original. We didn’t want to reinvent dishes. It’s more about heritage.”
See a modern play rooted in historic tragedy at the Ancient Theatre of Epidarus.
Photo by Chepesch
Cultural events in Greece you can’t miss
The Athens Epidaurus Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary this year from the end of June until the end of August. The event has evolved into a multidisciplinary cultural mélange, including ancient dramas, classical music, dynamic contemporary dance, and thought-provoking visual installations. Among the star acts to appear this year at the city’s atmospheric Odeon of Herodes Atticus amphitheater is classical pianist Yuja Wang. At the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, director Wajdi Mouawad presents Europa’s Pledge, a contemporary work rooted in ancient tragedy, with Juliette Binoche as lead.
From June 14 to October 31, Santorini’s recently restored Archaeological Museum of Thera will host the long-anticipated exhibition Kykladitisses: Untold Stories of Women in the Cyclades. The pan-Cycladic showcase drew consistent crowds when the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens hosted the exhibition through early May. On public display for the first time is the Colossal Kore of Thera, a marble sculpture of a female figure believed to date to the early seventh or late sixth century B.C.E. Joining this rare find are 180 Cycladic masterpieces dating from between the Neolithic period and the 19th century.
Syros, the Cycladic islands’ cosmopolitan capital, has earned a reputation for its ever-widening festival calendar. Events range from the Rebetiko music festival (August 28 to September 1), dedicated to the Greek blues genre using bouzouki instruments, to the International Festival of the Aegean in July, which celebrates its 20th anniversary with such operas as Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Strauss’s Elektra.
In Ioannina, a lively university town where Byzantine churches co-exist with Ottoman-era mosques, sits the 3Portes Gallery. Established by Franco-Greek couple Sophie Fardella and Tassos Kaliakatsos, the space is hosting a contemporary art exhibition, Future Archaeology, with music, video, paintings, sculpture, science, and new technologies, from June 14 to August 5.
