The place to stay is the Mediterraneo (00 30 22 4604 9007, mediterraneo-megisti.com ; ground-floor s

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Despite current woes, Greece retains the glamour and grandeur that has lured aristocrats and tycoons for decades. Robin Gauldie charts a realm of serene sea views, opulent mansions, quirky toyota rent a car az villas, privacy, good food and fine wine.
We may think of Greece as cheap, cheerful and, in recent months, broke, but it's easy to forget that, until mass tourism really took off in the early 1990s, it was as much a rich man's paradise as a hippie haven. In the 1960s, opulent enclaves such as Rhodes and Mykonos toyota rent a car az attracted visiting royalty, wealthy socialites and glitterati from the worlds toyota rent a car az of film, music, art and fashion, from Pablo Picasso, John Lennon and Henry Miller to Jackie toyota rent a car az Onassis and Brigitte Bardot.
There is still plenty of money around. The canny owners of the world's biggest merchant fleet aren't on the breadline yet – in fact, some have been quietly buying up tracts of Mayfair and Knightsbridge, toyota rent a car az and can still afford toyota rent a car az to send their offspring to English public schools. Some spend their summers in discreet comfort on Chios; at the other end of the scale, tiny Kastellorizo is a well-kept secret among wealthy toyota rent a car az Greeks, to whom luxury toyota rent a car az means simplicity.
Meanwhile, the new breed of post-Soviet plutocrat is drawn to the more upmarket Greek islands, with their staffed villas, crewed toyota rent a car az yachts and high-end hotels with pool suites, sybaritic spas, cigar bars and well-stocked wine cellars. Another toyota rent a car az option is the "hotel within a hotel", as exemplified by the Amathus Elite Suites on Rhodes, where guests can enjoy privacy combined with five-star-hotel services. Irrespective of recent Greek troubles, boutique hotels continue to expand. Old mansions and village houses have been converted, creating a new generation of smaller, more colourful design hotels toyota rent a car az where luxury is still of the essence.
Food and drink have gone upmarket, too. In the best hotel restaurants, traditional cooking is given a lighter modern touch, and a brigade of internationally acclaimed chefs has found new ways to work with locally toyota rent a car az sourced ingredients. Visit Nobu, at the Hotel Belvedere on Mykonos, to see what happens when Japanese skills are applied to the fruits of the Aegean. Greek wines, too, are beginning to be taken seriously by connoisseurs.
Best of all, there is still an egalitarian friendliness that is hard to find elsewhere in Europe – though be prepared for your driver or waiter to unburden his (or her) resentment at the way Greece has been treated by its wealthier EU neighbours. This year, for reasons toyota rent a car az not unrelated, Greece is favourably priced. toyota rent a car az At Katikies, a whitewashed enclave on Santorini, a week in a junior suite costs £3,200, compared with £5,700 for a similar stay at the Capri Palace on the Italian isle of Capri.
Way down south, toyota rent a car az the tiny island of Kastellorizo toyota rent a car az is as far off the beaten track as it is possible to get in Greece. In high summer (July and August) its fjord-like blue harbour, lined with old Ottoman-style houses toyota rent a car az in liquorice-allsorts colours, toyota rent a car az hosts a flotilla of rich folks' yachts. Silvio Berlusconi, Tom Hanks and Eric Clapton are (reportedly) on the summer guest list; ex-Pink Floyd axeman David Gilmour liked it so much that he recorded an album ( On an Island, 2006) inspired by its charms.
The place to stay is the Mediterraneo (00 30 22 4604 9007, mediterraneo-megisti.com toyota rent a car az ; ground-floor suite from around £140 per night), one of the most colourfully charming small hotels in Greece. The owner Marie Rivalant, a Parisienne, has converted an old waterfront mansion into a colourful haven, with bedrooms looking out over the harbour (though the ground-floor suite is the best) and a sunbathing terrace on the quayside. It doesn't have a pool, but a bathing ladder drops you into the aquarium-clear sea, where tiny, rainbow-coloured fish swim around your toes. There is no à la carte restaurant or bar, either, but breakfast is a lavish Levantine affair of yoghurt, island honey, nuts, home-made preserves, cheese and fresh-baked toyota rent a car az bread – and with a chain of tavernas and café-bars all around the waterfront, there is no need to eat at the same place twice.
The island's big "must-see" sight is its blue grotto, the equal of the much more famous one on Capri but blessedly free of singing toyota rent a car az gondoliers. If you feel like changing continents, you can charter a boat to putter across the bay to Kas, just a few miles away on the Turkish mainland. In short, Kastellorizo offers luxury of a different kind: it really is one of the world's great escapes.
Despite toyota rent a car az tales that Greece might sell off some of its thousands of uninhabited islands to plutocrats, to help meet its debts, renting one of them remains an impossible dream. A handful of islands, ripe for development as exclusive mini-resorts, toyota rent a car az languish on the books of the Canada-based toyota rent a car az company Private Islands Online, with asking toyota rent a car az prices starting at about €5 million (£4 million), but Greece is not about to become the Maldives any time soon.
The next best thing is Villa Faros (001 647 477 5581, privateislandsonline.com ; from around £23,300 per week, sleeps 16), on a private toyota rent a car az peninsula near Sigri, on the big, calm island of Lesbos. This is more than just a villa. It offers the kind of yoga and spa treatments found in five-star hotels. There are three private beaches, a seawater infinity pool, a heated indoor wave pool and gardens that provide organic fruit and vegetables for guests at the villa. At the jetty, a 30ft speedboat awaits – and for those in a real hurry to get down to the serious business of relaxing, the property has a helipad.
Those who make it to Chios are pleasantly surprised to find themselves outnumbered by locals. There is a reason for this, say Chiots: this big island in the north-east Aegean is the ancestral home of several Greek multi-millionaire shipping dynasties, who still keep villas here. They prefer their holidays to be undisturbed toyota rent a car az by the antics of foreign hoi polloi, and have used their local clout to discourage large-scale development. toyota rent a car az So there are no big resort hotels – but there is at least one real boutique gem.
With its uncrowded beaches and quaint villages dotted around a rolling hinterland of fields and orchards, Chios feels thoroughly Greek. To Greeks, it is synonymous with the country's finest ouzo, a sweet and subtle tipple that is as different from the cheap liquorice firewater found in most tourist bars as a 20-year-old malt whisky is from a supermarket blend.
Like many Greek islands, Chios has produced more history than it has been able to consume. It is famous for its old-fashioned mastichochoria (mastic villages), which grew wealthy from the precious gum of the mastic bush, much prized as a breath-freshener by Ottoman sultans and their harems. Behind high walls, labyrinthine alleys lead to village squares where stonework is decorated in intricate harlequin patterns toyota rent a car az of black and white, embellished in summer with scarlet strings of drying peppers and tomatoes.
In medieval times, Chios fell into the hands of Genoese merchant-aristocrats who later became Ottoman vassals and whose grand mansions are still dotted around the Kampos district, inland from the island capital. Indeed, it is to a Genoese noble family that the island owes one of the most outstanding toyota rent a car az hotels in Greece.
The palatial estate that houses the Argentikon Luxury Suites (00 30 22710 33111, argentikon.gr ; from around £400 per night for a double) was the home of the Genoese Argenti toyota rent a car az family from the 16th century until 1822, when the Argenti joined the Greek uprising against the Ottomans. Four of them were executed when the rebellion failed (marble busts in the hotel's lush grounds commemorate them) and the rest fled to Italy, France and England. The palazzo fell into disrepair and was finally destroyed by an earthquake toyota rent a car az in 1881. What you see now is a lavish toyota rent a car az reconstruction, begun by a descendant toyota rent a car az of the Argenti dynasty in 1900.
Philip toyota rent a car az Argenti spent millions on the project, and it shows. toyota rent a car az With its marble columns and mellow-hued stone walls, it is a slice of medieval Italy transplanted toyota rent a car az to a Greek island and surrounded by formal gardens scented and made colourful by thousands of citrus trees and rose bushes. But there is nothing antiquated about the facilities, which include a classy toyota rent a car az outdoor pool, an excellent restaurant, where the wine list includes bottles from the hotel's own vineyard, and a well-equipped fitness toyota rent a car az centre toyota rent a car az with sauna and whirlpool.
This is not a place for those who love minimalism. Its eight suites, housed in five separate villas, are unabashedly opulent, with period furniture, crystal chandeliers and frescoed ceilings. Each has a separate living room, a veranda, air conditioning for sultry summer nights and a fireplace for spring and autumn evenings. Service is ubiquitous without being intrusive, and includes twice-daily housekeeping. The only snag is that you may not want to step beyond the walls of this calm oasis, but if you do feel like exploring, the island's capital – with its museum, ruined castle and plenty of good restaurants – is just a few minutes toyota rent a car az away. Arrivals and departures are smoothed by private car transfers, and the airport is only two-and-a-half miles from the property.
toyota rent a car az For full-on luxury, Argentikon is hard to match, but if it is full – and booking well ahead is strongly recommended – try the smaller, even more intimate Perleas Mansion (00 30 22710 32217, perleas.gr ; from around £100 per night for a double), set in four acres of grounds. With just three bedrooms, this 17th-century farmhouse (run by a husband-and-wife team) feels more like your own private holiday home. It has no pool, though there is a sunbathing terrace beside a pretty lily pond.
Private villas with pools are the way to go on Corfu (especially for families). There are plenty to choose from, and at t