Review by Alex Jadad & Martha Garcia - Guests of Heliotopos hotel during July 28th - August 18th, 2007

My wife and I, both seasoned travelers, stayed at this special place for 3 weeks. I needed peace to work on a book and my wife had to prepare for an upcoming exam.

People used to warn us about the difficulties to find a quiet place in Santorini at the peak of the holiday season, but we persevered. We had dreamed of visiting this island for a while and this seemed as the perfect opportunity to do so.

When looking for our destination hotel, our criteria included a place that would be small, located in a peaceful place, away from crowds but close to interesting sites, with good technical support and where we could also have memorable and romantic moments.

After multiple online searches, including TripAdvisor, we seemed to have found it when we reached Heliotopos Hotel. We made contact with the front desk by telephone and they sounded perfectly matched to what we needed. We immediately made our reservations and hoped for our experience to meet our expectations.

To our great suprise, it did!

I could write 100 pages of positive comments about our stay at this wonderful environment. Today, I will focus on the most salient:

- The location is perfect. Imerovigli is a small town at walking distance from Fira and with a perfect view of unforgettable sunsets. These are also captured by the hotel's webcam at www.santorini.net.

- The staff, wonderful. They are not only very professional, but make every effort to make one feel at home. My birthday happened during my stay and they staged a surprise party that was attended by all of the team members, including the owner. I even received flowers that day! The breakfast was superb and served by very caring people.

- The atmosphere, cozy and stylish. The hotel hosts art exhibits and wine tastings. During our stay, we enjoyed art pieces by a talented Greek artist, Gorgos Kypris that peppered the entire place. We even had a masterpiece in our room. The hotel is also graced by paintings by its owner, a good artist in her own right. The wine tasting evenings were unforgettable and made us appreciate the labels of the island. I could always find quiet places to write, and even received very good feedback from the hotel manager and reception desk staff on my chapters.

- The infrastructure was impeccable. Even if we experienced technical difficulties accessing the Internet, they were fixed immediately. The reception team, the kitchen staff, the driver, repairman and cleaning teams were very diligent and kind. Our room was very comfortable.

- The guests were generally very interesting. Many of them understood the special setting that has been created by the hotel owners and staff, and benefited too from their caring and friendly attitude.

In sum, this place was conceived, designed, built, managed and monitored to bring to life the true meaning of what a hotel should be. The word Hotel, in fact, comes from the Latin 'Hospes", which means guest, or a place where one should feel as comfortable and nurtured as one feels at home. This, which is also the root behind the words "hospital" and "hospitality", unfortunately has been lost all over the world.

This place, simply, demonstrates that it is possible to find a home away from home.

We left Heliotopos with great memories and friends, hoping to see them again very soon and as many times as possible.