Alavya

Alaçatı is the prettiest town on the Çeşme peninsula, a grid of stone houses, bougainvillea and shuttered windows that the Aegean wind keeps cool through the summer. Alavya sits in the middle of it, six old village houses bought and restored one at a time, then joined behind a single wall around a garden. You come in off a narrow lane and the town falls away. The stone is left bare where it can be, the courtyard is planted and shaded, and the walls carry real art, the founders being collectors who would rather live with the work than store it. There are twenty-five rooms in all, from small and plain to a pair of lofts under the old beams, and the hand of the designer Hakan Ezer runs through them, playful without ever pushing too hard.

The table

Breakfast is the meal Alaçatı takes seriously, and Alavya keeps to that, a long Aegean spread of cheeses, eggs, tomatoes still warm from the sun and jams made in the kitchen. The rest of the day belongs to Mitu, which runs from the first coffee through to dinner, and to Mitu Lokanta in the evenings, where the cooking turns properly Aegean, the herbs and wild greens and olive oil this coast is built on. A patisserie covers the hours in between. When the heat drops the garden fills up, small plates come out with local wine, someone puts a record on, and it becomes the sort of evening you did not plan for and stay out too late enjoying.

Why it's in VANE

We like a hotel that is really a house, and Alavya is six of them, run at the scale where the desk knows your name by the second morning. It is not on the water, which some will hold against it, though we think the town is the point and the beaches of Çeşme are a short drive when you want them. There is a small spa with a sauna and a steam room, a garden pool for the long afternoons, and yoga in the mornings if that is your thing. Mostly there is the pleasure of a good stone house in a good town, with original work on the walls and a family who named the place after a child's way of saying I love you. Give it a few slow days. Alaçatı does the rest.