The Romanos, a Luxury Collection Resort

The village of Romanos stands on a low rise above the coast of Messinia, in the south-west of the Peloponnese, and the resort on the shore below took its name. Between village and sea lie olive groves, the sand dunes of Navarino and a long beach on the Ionian. The Romanos, a Luxury Collection Resort, opened there in 2010 as one of the two first hotels of Costa Navarino, the development that brought international resort travel to this part of Greece.

History

Costa Navarino was the project of Captain Vassilis Constantakopoulos, a Messinian born in 1935 who made his fortune in shipping with Costamare and came back to his home region with a plan for year-round tourism. Over some three decades he assembled the land from well over a thousand separate owners, most of them local families with small plots. His company, TEMES, opened the first phase, Navarino Dunes, in 2010, with The Romanos and The Westin Resort Costa Navarino side by side. The captain died in 2011, a year after the opening. His family carried the project on, and the second phase, Navarino Bay, opened in 2022 with a W hotel and a Mandarin Oriental.

Architecture and design

The buildings are low, built of local stone and set into the slope, with planted roofs that make them hard to pick out from a distance. The site was planned around its old olive trees, and those standing in the way of construction were dug up and replanted elsewhere on the estate rather than felled. Native shrubs and herbs fill the gardens. Rooms sit in small two-storey clusters and villas instead of one main block, with terraces and pools turned west towards the sea and the sunset.

Rooms and suites

The resort has more than 300 rooms, suites and villas. Most rooms have a terrace or a garden, and many have their own infinity pool. The villas add several bedrooms, private pools and gardens, which makes them the usual choice for families and for the core of a wedding party.

Dining

Restaurants are split between The Romanos itself and the agora of Navarino Dunes, a piazza of bars, shops and restaurants between the two hotels. The cooking leans on Messinian produce: olive oil from the prefecture whose capital gives Kalamata olives their name, fish from local boats and vegetables from nearby farms. Cooking classes and olive oil tastings are part of the resort programme, and the estate sells local oil and produce under its own Navarino Icons label.

Wellness

The Anazoe Spa, shared by the Navarino Dunes hotels, covers about 4,000 square metres. Its treatments draw on ancient Greek bathing and healing practices, and oleotherapy, treatment with warm olive oil, is its signature. Indoor hydrotherapy pools and a fitness centre complete it. Golf is the other draw. The Dunes Course, designed by Bernhard Langer with European Golf Design, opened with the resort in 2010, and The Bay Course, by Robert Trent Jones Jr., followed in 2011.

Weddings and events

Costa Navarino has become one of the leading places in Greece for destination weddings. At The Romanos, ceremonies take place on lawns and terraces above the sea, and receptions on the beach or in the agora. A conference centre at Navarino Dunes serves both hotels for meetings, incentive groups and larger dinners. Capacities depend on the setting chosen and are not published here.

Location

Navarino Bay, where in 1827 the fleets of Britain, France and Russia destroyed the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet in the last major battle fought between sailing ships, lies to the south, with the town of Pylos at its far end. The Palace of Nestor at Englianos, where Carl Blegen found the first Linear B tablets on the Greek mainland in 1939, is about 20 minutes away by car. Voidokilia beach and the Gialova lagoon, a stopping place for migrating birds, are closer still. This luxury resort in the Peloponnese is about 45 minutes by car from Kalamata Airport and around three hours by road from Athens.