Introducing Kinsterna

Debt crisis be damned, we still seem to have a bit of an obsession with all things Greek. Tablet’s recent addition of Kinsterna Hotel & Spa, a manor-house hotel near the medieval castle city of Monemvasia, is only fueling the fire.


Between the island paradise of the Cyclades and the chic boutiques of the capital, it’s no wonder the international traveler has scant attention left for some of Greece’s lesser-known destinations. One imagines, however, that fans of these lesser-known destinations like it that way. Every booking in Santorini is one more person with whom you won’t have to share Kinsterna, a thirteenth-century estate converted into a boutique hotel, a few miles down the Peloponnese coast from the medieval citadel of Monemvasia.

Not that there’s much risk of it feeling crowded, even at capacity. The style effortlessly combines historic architecture and contemporary interior design, and Kinsterna’s twenty-seven rooms and suites combine the better points of the monastic life — naturally soundproof stone walls, picturesque timber construction — with the sort of worldly pleasures today’s luxury traveler demands: flat-screen TVs, modern furnishings and decadent bathrooms.

“Kinsterna” is Byzantine for cistern, and water understandably features prominently. The old cistern itself is the centerpiece of the building, with its cantilevered seating platforms hanging over the water’s edge; farther on down the hill is the spring-fed swimming pool, and the heart of the old mansion conceals an elaborate and stylish spa complex.

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