5 Great Greek Hotels That Aren't Brown

Because Frankly, Brown Hotels Give Us the Blues...Especially in Greece!

The other day a friend wistfully/wishfully sent me a round-up of "design" hotels in Greece, most of which were in Mykonos, and many of which seemed to make too earnest use of the world's dreariest color, brown. I mean come on, there are at least 50 shades of grey, but there's basically just one shade of brown, and beige? I wasn't the first one to put that humorless hue in its place. And hey, did anybody ever go out shopping for a beige parrot? Nature wouldn't deign to make one.

It's amazing though how hotel chains and interior designers the world over, not just in Greece, have conflated the quest for the stamp of eco-credibility through sustainability with the perceived need for sensuously inert earth tones. But in this day and age, even brown flooring, unless of superior quality, is frankly kind of boring.

Obviously nobody is going to hotels right now, but imagine that you are, and there you are, you're finally away from home and you open the door and you're greeted by colors that look like they belong in a field of potatoes or barn room floor.

"The colors of Greece are blue and white,” says a prominent color expert.

Oh, they'll try to trick you by calling it cocoa or mocha or cappuchino but come on...it's brown, it's duller than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris put together and no you are not having it. Well, at least at these five great Greek hotels you won't have to.

Semiramis Hotel

My first encounter with color-mad industrial designer Karim Rashid was actually with his garbage can. The Prince of Plastic had signed a deal with one of those household goods companies and my curvy plastic blue wastepaper basket was graced with his name on the bottom, his signature "x" dotting the "i" in Karim. Later, he had a shop by my apartment on West 17th Street in Chelsea where all manner of bright useless fabulousness (with some cool shoes) was sold.

Even later, but not that much later, he had checked into my favorite pied-à-terre in Tel Aviv, a white tower facing the sea, at the same time as me. So I left a note for him at reception but diva-like, he ignored it. Did I say diva-like? Indeed: several months later while he was working on a hotel project, in response to a routine journalistic inquiry he asked me to rearrange some rooftop pots...anyway, the man is like a walking dispenser of shiny rainbow colors from day-glo orange to glossy lime green to hot pink—Rashid really. likes. pink.—the kinds of shades on flamboyant display at the Semiramis Hotel in Kifisia, an upscale place a bit north of Athens (hint: drive).

"Semiramis is also the visionary brainchild of art patron Dakis Joannou," according to the hotel. "Given free rein to create a total experience, Karim used his signature curvaceous forms and lollipop colors to offer a young, enthusiastic and seductive alternative to more traditional conceptions of hospitality....guestrooms, poolside bungalows, penthouse studios and suite display an innovative mix of textures and materials: colored concrete with rubber floors, ceramic tiles with metal. From custom-made carpeting to glass partitions to rubber flooring, the décor offers a young, energetic and seductive alternative to more traditional approaches to luxury and style." Bottom line? If you find any brown around here, it's probably going to be by mistake.

Grecotel Mykonos Blu

Now, you don't expect to find donkeys in the lobby of a luxury hotel in Mykonos, do you? But don't worry: the wide-eyed and cuddly blue creatures at the Grecotel Mykonos Blu, aren't real. But those pop-sculptural donkeys are not only perfect for Mykonos, island of the eternal surprise (like the downpours I experienced one September), they are very deliberately blue. It's a whole mood and one that plays off the gleaming white lobby and blue sea beyond, past Psarou Beach, to both whimsical and elegant effect. Saddle up.

The Cycladic islands are the ultimate ambassadors of Greece's classic blue and white color coupling. Nowhere is this more evident than in Mykonos, and though it's not something that is enforced in the manner of building codes in, say, Edgartown, it is an unspoken code nevertheless. Break it, and you risk destruction of plans—case in point, over the summer a Greek friend suggested we check out a new beach villa in Mykonos, he sends over the photos, I see brown decor, even a terrace egregiously bathed in beige and I sms him my smh, no way dude. So Antonis decamped to Paros instead!

Anyway, as its name would indicate, blue finds its way into most of the guest rooms and suites at Mykonos Blu. Even, crucially, the bathrooms. Because when it comes to bathroom design, is there anything worse than brown? Okay, gray in a bathroom is also just plain dumb. But here, pops of blue come in all the right places. At any Grecotel, by the way, you can always count on flawless service—not always a given in attitude-prone Mykonos—and some of the most refined cuisine too, drawing on fresh local ingredients and many from Crete.

Another Myconian hotel that does blue and white right is the Mykonos Star, located tantalizingly close to the "insider's" beach of Agios Sostis, north and east of Chora, or Mykonos Town.

Got exposed wood beams? Fine, but better paint them blue! Grecotel Mykonos Blu, above.

Istoria Santorini

The luxe-minimalist look of the Istoria Hotel , described on its website as "a topographical poem under an infinite sky," plays off its location near Santorini's famous black sand beach of Perissa. According to the hotel, "the pristine eastern side of the island is still left undisturbed by the visiting crowds, just 10 km from Santorini’s port and 13 km from the airport. Surrounded by ancient olive trees, wild herbs and aloe plants, Istoria is a natural beachfront hideaway that nurtures your creative side and piques your curiosity. With soul-healing lava literally underfoot, here you can ground yourself in the famed Cycladic isle’s mysterious volcanic energy and reinforce your connection to Mother Earth." The color palette here, while understated, is anything but anodyne.

Colors Urban Hotel, Thessaloniki

Think Turquoise. Or green, yellow, orange or almost any other color besides ho-hum brown when you stay at Colors Urban Hotel in the heart of bustling Thessaloniki, at Tsimiski 13. Since 2011, their "doors, minds and hearts are open for all the curious, independent, fun-loving modern travelers of the world." At Colors you are invited to "please your senses in large sunny uniquely-themed spaces" and to "explore the city from an exceptionally central location" while you "experience the local cuisine" and enjoy an "honest pricing scheme." Having stayed there, I'd say that invitation is pretty accurate. Fine city hotel, unpretentious and stylish with an affable Greek welcome.

A newer Colors Urban Hotel has sprouted up in Athens, near the still somewhat scruffy Omonia Square in an area whose revitalization has not been without its hiccups—the biggest one arguably being the absence of tourists due to the pandemic—but for our money it's the best and most authentically "boutique Athenian" place to stay in that part of town, as many Greek business travelers tend to do. From Colors, on 27-29 Emmanouil Benaki, it's an easy walk to the National Archaeological Museum, where a myth-inspired museum garden has recently opened up.