AS a travel writer, I often get asked where I go on holiday. The answer disappoints many people – I don’t. My passion is sharing great places, so I’m always working, finding it hard to switch off my travelling brain. Earlier this month, my wife and kids challenged me to “just enjoy a normal holiday”.
I was sceptical as we headed towards the Dolce by Wyndham Athens Attica Riviera; less so when I found our room for three days was one of 70 with our own wee plunge pool out the back. A dip on both mornings without leaving our room before breakfast was the ideal start to a holiday after a lie-in, my usual 5am start snoozed through. We were also metres from both their massive swimming pool and the cooling sea.
With my laptop tucked away for once – it’s normally the first thing I unpack – I was free to explore the resort. A Greek summer may seem too hot, but if you time it right, you can enjoy the tennis court, pétanque, basketball and volleyball early doors, and in the cooler evening. There are watersports too; mercifully, anything with a motor is banned.
With no sightseeing to plan around, our days became bookended by meals. Breakfast was buffet-style, spectacularly so as the breakfast room peers out over the water and hills, where normally a wee hike would beckon. To be fair, it became easier staying put dining so well.
Lunch at the Secret Restaurant was chicken gyros and Greek salad by the pool. Dinners went up a notch with a superb Tomahawk steak to share at Filema, then – pick of the bunch – a seafood feast at Ammos. We kicked off with sushi and sashimi, before their fresh fish of the day, sea bass. The chef explained it was hauled from the local boats in Attica.
I was finding it easy to slip into staying put time, but to be fair to the hotel, that is a credit to them as they are a hideaway used to being all things to all people.
Manager Athanasios Zaitidis told me: “We are like an island on our own here – we’re an airport hotel, a beach resort, a city hotel for Athens, a wedding venue and a family holiday spot.”
As if to prove his point, the drums from an exuberant Indian wedding beat in the background.
This eclectic mix of guests doing different things gave the resort a buzz I was carried along with. I wasn’t travelling, but travelling came to me and I chatted to Indian guests, as well as English and Americans, hearing their adventures in this most beguiling of countries. The only downside was that their colourful Greek travel stories gave me itchy feet …
I’m writing this now in Athens the day after leaving the Attica Riviera. I had been planning to finish off by telling you how I’d managed to stay within the resort the whole time. But that would be a lie.
When the kids and my wife were asleep, I sneaked out at 6am on the last morning before it got too hot for a hike. Not just any hike – there is always adventure on the road.
First, I curled around the beach from the hotel, joining one of the paths that snake through a local wildlife reserve, the Vravrona wetlands, part of the pan-European Natura 2000 network. Instantly, the comfortable world of cool cocktails by the pool and smiling waiters was gone as I yomped through reeds and thick vegetation alive with flowers, turtles and snakes, below glowering, parched hills, the cobalt sea blinking back like an old friend as I went.
My hike was worth the effort as I “stumbled” across the ancient Sanctuary of Brauronion Artemis, a sprawling complex, the remains of whose temple is the highlight, its well-preserved Doric columns defiantly still vaulting skywards.
OK, I admit it, I had browsed the internet when everyone else was asleep the night before to check out the local area. This was a key site in Ancient Greece, one of the dozen main towns of Attica, after all. Definitely worth tearing yourself away from the buffet for.
I also discovered Porto Rafti, a wee town with excellent restaurants. After a wee ramble along its waterfront, I can see why Athenians flock here at weekends to escape the city. I could say the same of the whole eastern Attica Riviera. The southern shores of the peninsula can be busy, but this eastern corner has not been overdeveloped yet.
My mind now popping with possibilities, I caught a bus back just in time to catch the kids sashaying to a lazy brunch overlooking the resort.
As I tucked into a hearty breakfast, I toasted with my orange juice to a relaxed proper couple of holiday days with my family – but also to the eternal thrill of discovering what lies beyond that next hill, around the next bay. And what hills and what bays they are in the spectacular Attica Riviera east of Athens.
Ah, glorious, unparalleled Athens. I will be travelling with you again – firmly back on the road – to the Greek capital next week.
easyJet flies to Athens from Edinburgh.
