When it comes to booking a holiday it can be hard not to be seduced by the allure of visiting somewhere new; the tempting idea of creating brand new memories somewhere completely unknown that you’ve never been (but may as well have thanks to your endless scrolling through idyllic Instagram pages).
When it comes to booking a holiday in the midst of planning a wedding, however, your priorities can shift somewhat.
A few months before I was due to walk down the aisle I had little interest in broadening my holiday horizons – no energy spare for trialing new activities and a brain which was miles too busy adjusting and re-adjusting table plans to have the mental capacity to curate a convoluted itinerary somewhere I didn’t even know if I’d like. I did, however, have a keen interest in taking some time out, and before I knew it we were heading for our failsafe destination: Santorini.
Having already travelled to the whitewashed isle three times over the last five years, we felt safe in the knowledge that we knew exactly what we were getting as we made our way to Andronis Concept – a hotel reportedly loved by Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry.
But while much of the idyllic island was just as we remembered, this hotel was unlike any we’d visited prior. For a start it wasn’t white.
As our airport transfer pulled up to our home for the next few days we were not greeted by the angular white building with blue accents that we were used to, but rather by sweeping stretches of curved clay concrete in a colour palette of soft, buttery yellows and cool greys.
An architectural masterpiece that you’d be more confident guessing was part of a James Bond movie set than a hotel in Santorini, it is this earthy framework that camouflages into the island’s rocky, volcanic landscape which, somewhat ironically, makes it truly stand out.