https://vanehotels.com/ Independent reviews of Mediterranean hotels and restaurants by Dimitris Stathopoulos. en https://vanehotels.com/hotel-rosselli-ax-privilege.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-rosselli-ax-privilege.html A goldsmith's Baroque palazzo on Merchants Street, brought back as 25 rooms and a Michelin cellar, and run at the scale of a private house in the middle… 2026-08-17 https://vanehotels.com/folio-vila-planinka.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-vila-planinka.html A close reading of Vila Planinka, the tech-free alpine house at the head of Slovenia's Jezersko valley, with a Michelin-listed table and a cellar drawn from all nine Slovenian wine regions. 2026-08-17 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-menton-lemon-the-citron-that-owns-a-festival.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-menton-lemon-the-citron-that-owns-a-festival.html On the last French terraces before Italy grows a thick-skinned, perfumed lemon good enough to have earned its own protected name, and a festival built… 2026-08-17 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-cilento-the-uncrowded-coast-south-of-the-amalfi.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-cilento-the-uncrowded-coast-south-of-the-amalfi.html An hour and a half past the Amalfi crush, a Tyrrhenian shore of Greek temples, philosophers' ruins and the village where the Mediterranean diet was named. 2026-08-16 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-monaci-delle-terre-nere.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-monaci-delle-terre-nere.html A working wine estate on the black soils of Etna, where the vines are farmed biodynamically and the kitchen cooks mostly what the land gives it. An… 2026-08-16 https://vanehotels.com/folio-monaci-delle-terre-nere.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-monaci-delle-terre-nere.html A close reading of Monaci delle Terre Nere, the working wine estate on the black soils of Etna, where what you pour and eat comes off the hillside. 2026-08-16 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-positano-sandal-cut-to-your-foot-while-you-wait.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-positano-sandal-cut-to-your-foot-while-you-wait.html A strip of leather, a knife, twenty minutes. How a fishing village turned the flat sandal into an object worth waiting for. 2026-08-15 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-chedi-lustica-bay.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-chedi-lustica-bay.html The first hotel of a new marina town on the Luštica peninsula, bringing the Chedi's unhurried, Asian-inflected calm to the far side of the Bay of Kotor. 2026-08-15 https://vanehotels.com/folio-kasbah-bab-ourika.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-kasbah-bab-ourika.html A close reading of Kasbah Bab Ourika, the rammed-earth kasbah alone on a red hilltop above the Ourika Valley, the High Atlas across every window. 2026-08-15 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-lily-of-the-valley.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-lily-of-the-valley.html The Saint-Tropez peninsula is not where you expect to find a hotel about restraint. Lily of the Valley sits above the noise on the Cap Lardier headland… 2026-08-14 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-euripus-where-the-tide-loses-count.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-euripus-where-the-tide-loses-count.html At Chalcis, a strip of water barely forty metres wide changes its mind up to fourteen times a day, and it took more than two thousand years to explain why. 2026-08-14 https://vanehotels.com/folio-lily-of-the-valley.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-lily-of-the-valley.html A close reading of Lily of the Valley, Philippe Starck's wellness resort above Gigaro beach on the Saint-Tropez peninsula, where health is treated as a pleasure rather than a penance. VANE Folio No. 45. 2026-08-14 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-le-corbusier-coast-where-e-1027-and-the-cabanon-share-a-cliff-at-cap-martin.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-le-corbusier-coast-where-e-1027-and-the-cabanon-share-a-cliff-at-cap-martin.html A shelf of rock above the sea at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin holds Eileen Gray's masterpiece, Le Corbusier's smallest building, and the quarrel that still runs… 2026-08-13 https://vanehotels.com/folio-the-phoenicia-malta.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-the-phoenicia-malta.html A close reading of The Phoenicia Malta, the island's first grand hotel at the land gate of Valletta, with seven acres of garden falling to a pool below the bastion. VANE Folio No. 44. 2026-08-13 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-alavya.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-alavya.html Six restored stone houses gathered around a walled garden in the heart of Alaçatı, hung with the owners' art and built on the Aegean habit of doing very… 2026-08-13 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-kastellorizo-the-harbour-at-the-edge-of-greece.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-kastellorizo-the-harbour-at-the-edge-of-greece.html A field note from the country's easternmost island, a single painted waterfront facing the Turkish coast across a strip of impossibly clear water. 2026-08-12 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-when-the-day-is-cut-in-two.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-when-the-day-is-cut-in-two.html A total solar eclipse crosses Europe on 12 August 2026, from the cold Atlantic light of Iceland to a sunset over Spain. Two ends of the continent, one… 2026-08-12 https://vanehotels.com/folio-al-moudira.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-al-moudira.html A close reading of Al Moudira, the country-house hotel on Luxor's quiet west bank, built by Zeina Aboukheir from a salvaged old Egypt. VANE Folio. 2026-08-12 https://vanehotels.com/folio-xara-palace.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-xara-palace.html A close reading of The Xara Palace, the only hotel inside Mdina's walls — a 17th-century palazzo, seventeen rooms and a Michelin-starred rooftop. 2026-08-11 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-chios-mastiha-the-tears-that-grow-in-only-one-place.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-chios-mastiha-the-tears-that-grow-in-only-one-place.html One resin, one island, one stretch of southern hillside. The only ground on earth where the mastic tree agrees to weep. 2026-08-11 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-meneghetti.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-meneghetti.html A restored Austro-Hungarian farmstead deep in Istria, Croatia's quiet answer to Tuscany, where the wine, the oil and much of the plate come off the… 2026-08-11 https://vanehotels.com/list-paros.html https://vanehotels.com/list-paros.html Paros done right: Parikia and the Hundred Doors, Naoussa after dark, the marble villages and Byzantine road, the quiet coves and the tavernas locals keep. 2026-08-11 https://vanehotels.com/list-corfu.html https://vanehotels.com/list-corfu.html Corfu done right: the Venetian Old Town and fortresses, the Liston, the Achilleion, Pantokrator and Paleokastritsa, the island's table, and what to skip. 2026-08-11 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-the-phoenicia-malta.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-the-phoenicia-malta.html Malta's first grand hotel keeps a trick no newer rival can copy: seven acres of garden falling from the gate of Valletta to a pool set against the… 2026-08-10 https://vanehotels.com/folio-casa-dell-arte.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-casa-dell-arte.html A close reading of Casa dell'Arte, the Torba house on the Bodrum peninsula where a family hung three decades of Turkish art, then opened the doors. 2026-08-10 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-menorca-the-balearic-that-chose-quiet-over-crowds.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-menorca-the-balearic-that-chose-quiet-over-crowds.html The island UNESCO protected in 1993 is quietly becoming the low-impact answer to Ibiza, led by a new pair of fincas in the empty north. 2026-08-10 https://vanehotels.com/folio-manna.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-manna.html A close reading of Manna, the late-1920s Mount Mainalo sanatorium that K-Studio brought back as one of Greece's most considered mountain retreats. VANE Folio No. 40. 2026-08-09 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-dar-ben-gacem.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-dar-ben-gacem.html A dar is a house turned inward, its life facing a courtyard rather than the street, and the medina of Tunis is full of them behind blank walls and studded… 2026-08-09 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-riva-aquarama-the-mahogany-speedboat-that-is-the-riviera-itself.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-riva-aquarama-the-mahogany-speedboat-that-is-the-riviera-itself.html Built by hand on an Italian lake, Riva's varnished runabout became the one object that stands in for the whole Mediterranean summer. 2026-08-09 https://vanehotels.com/list-thessaloniki.html https://vanehotels.com/list-thessaloniki.html Thessaloniki done right: Ano Poli, the Byzantine churches and the Rotonda, bougatsa and the markets, the tsipouradika and the mussels, and what to skip. 2026-08-09 https://vanehotels.com/folio-bkerzay.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-bkerzay.html A close reading of Bkerzay, the stone guest-house village in Lebanon's Chouf mountains — a conservation project run on the sun, with its own kiln. 2026-08-08 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-meltemi-the-wind-that-rules-the-aegean-summer.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-meltemi-the-wind-that-rules-the-aegean-summer.html The dry northerly that scours the Cyclades from July to September is not weather so much as a season with a temper. It shaped the islands, and it still… 2026-08-08 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-bkerzay.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-bkerzay.html Most mountain hotels sit on the land. Bkerzay sits down inside it. A scatter of stone houses on a shoulder of the Chouf, built low among the pines and… 2026-08-08 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-gibellina-the-town-italy-rebuilt-as-art.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-gibellina-the-town-italy-rebuilt-as-art.html An earthquake destroyed a Sicilian town, and artists rebuilt it. In 2026 Gibellina is Italy's first Capital of Contemporary Art. Five things to see. 2026-08-07 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-mas-de-torrent.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-mas-de-torrent.html An 18th-century Catalan farmhouse above the Baix Empordà, turned into a low, quiet retreat where the whole luxury is being left alone with the garden and… 2026-08-07 https://vanehotels.com/list-mykonos.html https://vanehotels.com/list-mykonos.html Mykonos done right: Delos across the water, Little Venice timed after the crowd, quiet Ano Mera, the exposed north beaches, and the tavernas the locals keep. 2026-08-07 https://vanehotels.com/folio-mas-de-torrent.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-mas-de-torrent.html Mas de Torrent, an 18th-century Catalan farmhouse above the Baix Empordà, with a serious kitchen and the Costa Brava coves a short boat ride away. 2026-08-07 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-beit-al-batroun.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-beit-al-batroun.html A five-room house on a hillside above the sea near Batroun, built over a decade by one woman out of salvaged Lebanese doors, shutters and tiles, and run… 2026-08-06 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-symi-the-harbour-painted-by-sponge-money.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-symi-the-harbour-painted-by-sponge-money.html A field note from the Dodecanese port where a fortune in sponge-diving wealth still stands, tier on tier, in ochre and blue. 2026-08-06 https://vanehotels.com/folio-adrere-amellal.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-adrere-amellal.html A close reading of Adrere Amellal, the off-grid salt-rock lodge in Egypt's Siwa Oasis — forty candlelit rooms and a near-vanished silence. VANE Folio. 2026-08-06 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-torre-de-palma.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-torre-de-palma.html A working Alentejo wine estate with a serious kitchen and nineteen cool white rooms, wrapped around the memory of the Roman villa it is named for. 2026-08-05 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-bottarga-di-cabras-sardinias-amber-gold.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-bottarga-di-cabras-sardinias-amber-gold.html In a brackish lagoon on Sardinia's west coast, grey mullet roe is salted, pressed and dried into the Mediterranean's amber caviar. 2026-08-05 https://vanehotels.com/folio-torre-de-palma.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-torre-de-palma.html Torre de Palma, a working Alentejo wine estate near Monforte with a serious kitchen, its own cellar and the memory of the Roman villa it is named for. 2026-08-05 https://vanehotels.com/folio-efendi.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-efendi.html Efendi: two derelict Ottoman merchant houses inside old Acre's walls, restored over eight years by the chef behind Uri Buri into twelve rooms. 2026-08-04 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-astypalea-the-island-that-turned-off-its-engines.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-astypalea-the-island-that-turned-off-its-engines.html Volkswagen and the Greek state turned this Dodecanese butterfly into a laboratory for the electric car. Several years in, the experiment reads less like a… 2026-08-04 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-hacienda-de-san-rafael.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-hacienda-de-san-rafael.html An 18th-century olive estate halfway between Seville and Jerez, restored into a small, hushed hacienda where the Andalusian countryside sets the pace. 2026-08-04 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-efendi.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-efendi.html Two Ottoman merchant palaces inside the walls of old Acre, joined and brought back stone by stone, with painted ceilings above the beds and a Crusader… 2026-08-03 https://vanehotels.com/folio-el-fenn.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-el-fenn.html A close reading of El Fenn, Vanessa Branson's Marrakech riad grown from its neighbours over two decades — run on colour, craft and a real art collection. 2026-08-03 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-blancpain-fifty-fathoms-tech-the-diver-that-stopped-counting-minutes.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-blancpain-fifty-fathoms-tech-the-diver-that-stopped-counting-minutes.html Blancpain's newest diver counts time in three-hour shifts, not sixty-minute laps. A quiet answer to how long divers really stay down. 2026-08-03 https://vanehotels.com/folio-palazzo-radomiri.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-palazzo-radomiri.html Palazzo Radomiri, a restored 17th-century captain's house on the Dobrota waterfront in the Bay of Kotor, ten rooms named after boats. A close VANE reading. 2026-07-26 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-capo-batroun.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-capo-batroun.html A small architect-built resort on the Batroun shore, cast quite literally from beach sand and cement so it seems to rise out of the coast itself. Eight… 2026-07-26 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-bora-adriatic-wind.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-the-bora-adriatic-wind.html A cold wind falls off the Dinaric wall and decides how the northern Adriatic looks, sails and tastes. 2026-07-26 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-nimes-borrows-the-louvres-rome.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-nimes-borrows-the-louvres-rome.html For one summer the most Roman city in France holds a hundred works from the Louvre, and asks us to stop looking at Rome as though it were only beautiful. 2026-07-25 https://vanehotels.com/folio-lopud-1483.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-lopud-1483.html Lopud 1483, a fortified Franciscan monastery off Dubrovnik, empty since 1822 and restored into five suites and a cloister of art. A close VANE reading. 2026-07-25 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-lopud-1483.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-lopud-1483.html You arrive by boat, since Lopud allows no cars, and the monastery meets you at the water: a wall of pale stone rising off its own point, raised in 1483… 2026-07-25 https://vanehotels.com/hotel-kasbah-bab-ourika.html https://vanehotels.com/hotel-kasbah-bab-ourika.html The kasbah stands on its own on a red hilltop at the head of the Ourika Valley, three-quarters of an hour out of Marrakech, and the first thing you notice… 2026-07-24 https://vanehotels.com/folio-argos-in-cappadocia.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-argos-in-cappadocia.html Argos in Cappadocia: a monastery quarter above Pigeon Valley, dug back out of the rock over fourteen years. A close reading of Uchisar's cave hotel. 2026-07-24 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-monemvasia-the-town-behind-the-rock.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-monemvasia-the-town-behind-the-rock.html A field note from the Peloponnese, where a single causeway leads to a medieval town you cannot see from land. 2026-07-24 https://vanehotels.com/folio-hisa-franko.html https://vanehotels.com/folio-hisa-franko.html A close reading of Hisa Franko, the Soca-valley guesthouse where self-taught Ana Ros cooks one menu under three Michelin stars, with ten rooms to stay. 2026-07-23 https://vanehotels.com/bearings-gaziantep-the-pistachio-kingdom.html https://vanehotels.com/bearings-gaziantep-the-pistachio-kingdom.html How a city in Turkey's south-east built its whole table around one small green nut, then fenced its baklava inside European law. 2026-07-23