Phaea Blue, Elounda, Crete

Phaea Blue, Elounda, Crete

The northeast coast of Crete is where the island keeps its better-kept secrets. Elounda has a harbour, Plaka has a handful of waterside tables, and directly across the water sits Spinalonga, a Venetian fortress turned leper colony turned National Monument, which is one of the more quietly affecting places in Greece and visible from almost every room at Phaea Blue. The property was reimagined by two sisters from their family's original hotel, and the result carries that lineage without being sentimental about it. Forty-seven bungalows and suites cascade down a hillside above a private pebbled beach, interiors drawing on local craft, handmade ceramics and woven textiles and marble worked by Cretan artisans, the grounds extending into an organic garden and beehives that supply the kitchen and occasionally the agenda. Dining spreads across three distinct registers: Anthós for refined contemporary Greek, the Blue Door Taverna for fresh seafood in a restored fisherman's stone cottage at the water's edge, and the Farmers' Feast, a seasonal communal table in the garden built around whatever was harvested that day. This is a hotel for people who want to feel Crete rather than simply visit it, who will take the five-minute boat to Spinalonga on a Tuesday morning and spend an hour there largely alone, and who find that the organic garden and the beehives and the communal table in the evening are, quietly, the best parts of the week Short version: Forty-seven bungalows and suites on a hillside above a private beach in Elounda, with direct views of Spinalonga, three distinct restaurants, and a hotel run by two sisters who reimagined their family's property into something considerably more interesting.