Why Greece’s Costa Navarino Is Having a Moment in the Sun

“Silk has actually had a long history in the Messenia region,” Athens-based designer Christiana Vardakou tells me as we stroll the grounds of the newly opened Mandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino, located in a quiet pocket of the southwest coast of the Peloponnese right next to the modest village of Pylos. We’re about a 45-minute drive west from the town of Kalamata, which is today best known for its olives, but also once played host to a thriving ancient silk-weaving practice. Now, there’s not much of it left, Vardakou explains, adding that there may just be one operation around, and it wouldn’t be easy to access its very limited silk production. Still, as a designer, Vardakou is eager to explore the textile history of Greece—and that’s why today, we’re scavenging the hotel’s gardens to pluck flowers and plants that we can use to naturally dye a silk scarf.

Photo: Courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino

Vardakou drives three hours from Athens to host these creative workshops exclusively for Mandarin Oriental guests. And it’s just one of the ways the hotel aims to connect visitors to the local culture. The Peloponnese is hardly an unknown destination: Historic towns like Mycenae, Nafplio, and Olympia as well as white-sand beaches in Elafonissos, Kalamata, and Mani get their fair share of summer tourism. But the area of Costa Navarino, a luxury resort development, is a much newer pin on the upscale travel map. The first phase of construction was launched in 2010, and nearly 15 years later, there’s still an easygoing pace to a vacation here. There are no cruise ship tours marching through in the middle of the day like Santorini. And while DJ-led events do happen, Myconian-style circuit parties aren’t the norm.

Instead, you could be hiking the nearby trails, seeking out tranquil beaches, visiting olive oil farms, or, like me, walking around Mandarin Oriental’s grounds with a Greek designer snipping and picking hibiscus, achillea, lavender, and yarrow for our DIY art project. We’re going to take our bounty to Navarino Agora, a new outdoor dining, shopping, and entertainment complex sandwiched between Mandarin Oriental and W Costa Navarino. Opened last summer, this is probably the liveliest part of the development, where you could eat international cuisine (from Peruvian to Lebanese), shop for resort wear from Vilebrequin and Melissa Odabash, and watch a movie. In ancient Greek, agora means an outdoor market where people gather. Agora Navarino serves much of the same function, and today, my natural dyeing activity with Vardakou is proving to be a particularly intriguing sight for the gathering public; a few stop to ask about what we’re doing. Near the center of the agora, the hotel installed a table stacked with all the supplies (including jars of the dried flowers Vardakou drove over from Athens) we’ll need to turn a plain silk scarf into a vision from my imagination.

Photo: Courtesy of Costa Navarino

Natural silk dyeing is only one of the new things you can do in Costa Navarino—on top of your typical Greek vacation pursuits of eating seafood, getting a tan on pretty beaches, and exploring historic attractions, of course. Add the region’s picturesque dunes, rolling olive groves, luxury hotels, and golf courses, and you’ve got Greece’s hottest new resort destination.

Where to StaySince the Costa Navarino development project started nearly 15 years ago, hotels were always a major fixture of the master plan. Along the way, there’s been a slow rollout of properties, which culminated with the August 2023 opening of Mandarin Oriental, a 2,500-acre family-friendly hotel that aims to redefine the area’s tourism scene. One look at the almost extraterrestrial architecture—it appears like a mirage of a modernist mansion along the California coast—and you’ll know this isn’t your typical Greece hotel. Set along a hill that faces Navarino Bay are 99 guest lodgings: Fifty-one suites and 48 pool villas, so you know you’re getting a lot of space (and sea views that only seem to extend it).

Photo: Courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino

The amenities that orbit your stay reflect Mandarin’s trusted brand of luxury hospitality. For instance, you know there’s going to be an exceptional spa that comes with a massive 82-foot indoor-outdoor pool, a fantastic hydrotherapy circuit (one of the most frigid cold plunges in a hotel), and customizable skin and body treatments. There’s also a beach club, which comes with its own pool, where you’ll typically find the families spending the day. The hotel also manages seven world-class culinary concepts (eight if you count the private dining room): Oliviera, which has fantastic views of the bay, is the only Greek kitchen, and it also oversees a fantastic breakfast program. But there’s also a very unusual pizza omakase experience at Pizza Sapienza by Daniele Cason.

Photo: Courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino

Because the hotel is part of the Costa Navarino project, staff can bring you to any part of the development: the tennis courts, the golf courses, the other hotels, and even to nearby Pylos if you’re seeking offsite exploration. Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino is a seasonal operation so you can imagine the sums that come with staying here during the summer. (Expect an average nightly rate of around $2,000 a night.) There’s also a W, The Romanos, and a Westin at the resort, and they’re all more accessibly priced. Similarly, some of Costa Navarino’s residences have recently opened up for villa rentals if your group is looking for a more contained stay (but with access to the resort amenities throughout). Villa Aelia, for instance, is a modern four-bedroom retreat equipped with a pool, indoor and outdoor dining, and a BBQ pit.

What to DoIf you’re looking to stay at the resort, there’s plenty to keep you occupied. Costa Navarino has swiftly raised its profile among golfers with its four 18-hole signature golf courses. One of them, The Bay Course, actually snakes around Mandarin Oriental, a super convenient perk if you’re a golfer staying at that hotel. A 10-minute drive away might be the most spectacular of the four: The Hills Course, a challenging par 72 course, overlooks the green-and-blue expanse of the Peloponnese. Sports fanatics will find lots to love about Costa Navarino, home to world-class basketball and tennis facilities. There’s an NBA Basketball School that caters to both kids and adults with all sorts of learning programs and camps. And the Mouratoglou Tennis Center, founded by Patrick Mouraglou, who has coached the likes of Serena Williams and Grigor Dimitrov, offers an impressive setup of courts: hardcourts, red clay courts, and the only grass court in Greece. (Apparently, homegrown ace Stefanos Tsitsipas regularly trains here, too.)

The region’s rugged landscape is made for many types of active pursuits such as cycling, climbing, and hiking. EXOsports operates Navarino Outdoors activities in the area and leads tours on foot, hands, and wheels. Mountain biking is soaring in popularity right now, and what better place to take up a new hobby than while on a Greek vacation? Ask your guide to lead you to Kalamaris waterfall for a refreshing dip—a reward for your efforts.

Hiking in forestPhoto: Courtesy of Costa Navarino

You’re in Greece, though, so you definitely want to spend a lot of time on the water. The best hotels in the area will have direct beach access (and fun water activities like stand-up paddleboarding), but through the concierge at Mandarin Oriental, you can also opt to take a half-day sail around the bay and beyond into the Ionian Sea. The skipper can whisk you to Voidokilia, one of the more popular beaches in Navarino. It’s a pristine sandy beach shaped like a horseshoe. During the peak of summer, Voidokilia gets so busy that it creates a traffic jam for people trying to reach it by car—so it’s much better to get there by the water. The sail can include other nearby beaches, but more interesting still is the tour of the monuments erected on different islands to commemorate 1827’s Battle of Navarino; one of the region’s most important historic events.

Photo: Courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino

Spread across Costa Navarino are further cultural experiences, like a traditional cooking class with a local family and a philosophy hike led by a classics scholar. But if you want even more history and culture, you’ll have to venture offsite. For example, there’s the Palace of Nestor, a beautifully preserved Mycenaean palace located about 10 miles north of the Navarino development. You may recognize its name from Homer’s Odyssey, as the hero Nestor deployed 90 ships to fight in the Trojan War; today, what remains are ceramics, wall paintings, and a bathroom with a terracotta tub. There are many other archeological ruins to explore, including one in Methoni from the region’s era under the Venetians in the Middle Ages and the Castle of Pylos, a 16th-century fortress.

Photo: Courtesy of Costa Navarino

You can also take a day trip 45 minutes east to the city of Kalamata: the land of mountains, sea, and olives. For museum lovers, the Victoria Karelias Museum of Traditional Greek Costumes is worth a stop for its vast collection of gorgeous clothes and jewelry that have been worn in Greece through the ages, from nomadic coats to ornate Byzantine gowns. Then, stroll over to the waterfront and find the beach perch that best speaks to you: Kalamata’s urban beach is renowned for its cleanliness.

Back in Navarino, the shopping is surprisingly robust. Navarino Agora is home to a handful of high-end boutiques from international brands, but the best local ones are Artisun for fun affordable jewelry, and the Benaki Museum Shop, which carries a curated inventory of design-forward pieces, from floral placemats and hand-painted ceramics to breezy, beach-ready sarongs.

Where to EatFor a resort development, Costa Navarino has a sharp focus on top-tier dining. The various hotels have their in-house concepts; whether that’s the modernized Greek meals at Mandarin Oriental’s Oliviera (the just rich enough octopus cannelloni is the must-order here) or its lobby-area, sea-facing cocktail bar Three Admirals, or W Costa Navarino’s vegetarian kitchen Green Pepper. (They all typically initiate seasonal pop-ups, too.)

But all over the development you’ll find a global collection of dining venues making this little corner of the Peloponnese a culinary destination. In Navarino Agora, there’s Guacana, a Peruvian bar. And in Navarino Dunes, you can enjoy grilled catch of the day with refreshing Greek wines at the K-Studio-designed beachside restaurant Barbouni. Like at the hotels, there are plenty of seasonal food and wine activations throughout the resort, too, such as a recent wine festival held at Navarino Agora that focused on the producers from the region of Messenia.

Off the resort, there are plenty more dining options to choose from. At the adjacent village of Pylos, try Koukos for fancy twists on traditional Greek fare such as meatballs with tomato-loaded scrambled eggs and shrimp saganaki. In the even smaller village of Gialova, stroll the pedestrian street lined with restaurants, bars, cafes, and shops before settling for lunch or dinner at Anama. The lineup of Greek wines is massive but the food menu (Greek with a global flair) is more tightly composed and changes every week. Depending on when you visit, you could sample crab falafel or a bowl of seafood pasta spiked with lemongrass.

A bit farther afield is the village of Marathopoli. There, a short waterfront promenade that hosts several seafood restaurants is the dining strip of choice for visitors from all over. Don’t be surprised to rub elbows with Greek families and friend groups, couples on honeymoons, and athletes in lycra who cycled through town. We like Panorama, where you can tuck into classic Greek seafood, from a mixed-greens salad topped with fried sardines to a cabbage dolmadakia stuffed with white fish. The unobstructed view of the water and the enormous menu of local wines complete the Greek vacation fantasy.