tatler.com Tatler October 2019But the city’s best surprise lies
half an hour south of the centre, on
the coast in Vouliagmeni, famed
for its healing thermal waters. It is
also home to Astir Beach, dotted
with glorious black and white
striped umbrellas and daybeds
(which have been brought back to
life this year as a nostalgic wink to
its heyday) and its own marina,
yacht club and 6th-century BC
ruins, the Temple of Apollo Zoster.
The area is known affectionately as
the Athenian Riviera and has been
marinated in pure, unadulterated
jet-set glamour since its Sixties
prime. At the centre of it all is the
Astir Palace Hotel, the place where
Christina Onassis learnt to water
ski, Aristotle Onassis courted Jackie
Kennedy, Brigitte Bardot hired a
doppelgänger so that she could
hang out uninterrupted by the
pool, and Rudolf Nureyev drifted
along the boardwalk towards his
favourite bungalow.
Today, high-octane glamour is
still a given. The name conjures up
sun, Valentino and bare feet. Here
there are no cute fishing boats or
tanned seamen mending nets – just
elegant yachts, sleekly bobbing in
the marina before the party people
descend on the new Four Seasons
Astir Palace jetty.
And what waves this Four Seasons
hotel has created in the four months
since it opened with a £230 million
facelift. Previously majority-owned
by the National Bank of Greece,
the hotel and beach club was sold
in 2016 as part of the government
drive to reduce the national debt.
The new owner, Jermyn Street (an
investment group backed by Abu
Dhabi, Kuwait and the Turkish
Dogus group) brought in the Four
Seasons to manage the Astir Palace- creating 650 jobs for the local
Greek economy in the process –
and it has now truly regained its
title as the ultimate beachside
pleasure dome. ]
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