Kostas Stefanou and Elisa Mavropoulou are wonderful people and gracious hosts, and they made our stay at their Villa Maria a sweet, comfortable, intimate, and very warm experience.
Even before we arrived, Kostas’s prompt responses to our email questions revealed how friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive he is. And when we arrived in Syros, his clear directions brought us quickly from the ferry to the main square, where he was waiting with an easy smile and great enthusiasm for our visit.
Ermoupolis spreads out along the port and uphill from it with many pedestrian-only streets and many, many stairs. Kostas guided us along the few streets and up the stone steps to Ydras Street and the bougainvillea-covered entrance to Villa Maria, an old mansion that he and Elisa have beautifully and lovingly restored. After showing us to our room, Kostas sat with us at a table on the second-floor outdoor courtyard and annotated a map of the city and the island, providing what turned out to be fabulous recommendations for places to eat, towns to visit, beaches to swim at, and trails to hike. He is discerning and knows the most special and the best of the best. And Villa Maria is well located, making it very easy to get to any and all of the places of interest in the city, from the opera house to the Vaporia, St. Nicholas to the ferry terminal.
The information and photos on the Villa Maria website accurately describe it and depict the rooms. We loved our stay in Yakinthos (hyacinth). It is one of two rooms—the other is Narkissos (narcissus)—on the second floor that have balconies. The room has high ceilings, and, as the photos reveal, it is very light, spacious, and airy. The bed was comfy and had extra pillows. The balcony offers a commanding, unobstructed 180 degree view out to the port and beyond, where we witnessed dramatic sunrises daily and sat in the early evening with glasses of Assyrtiko to watch the waning colors. On a more mundane note, we were grateful that Yakinthos, unlike many hotel rooms and Airbnbs, had several electrical sockets so we could recharge everything at the same time.
There is a small communal kitchen down the hallway. It has a refrigerator, double burner hot plate, and sink. The kitchen is sufficiently equipped for one to prepare breakfast, lunch, and even a simple dinner. There is cookware, utensils, and in a hall cabinet, glasses, and dishware. It is stocked with bottles of drinking water, coffee, tea, sugar, etc. We shopped for breakfast food on nearby Chiou Street, a charming market street lined with fish, meat, produce, and specialty food markets as well as bakeries, and every morning we had our juice, tea, coffee, and fresh yoghurt outside in the sunny courtyard.
Concerning food, the ground floor of Villa Maria houses a spacious, professional kitchen, where Elisa conducts cooking classes in traditional Greek cuisine. Being foodies who love to cook, we were very interested in what Elisa had to offer. So we met with her at a café to talk about it. She has a winning smile, a bright, energetic, engaging intelligence, a warm personality, and a profound understanding of food in general and traditional dishes from all over Greece. She provided us with a cookbook worth of options for dishes and several sample menus that she could show us how to prepare. Together we put together a menu comprising mezes, salads, sides, a main, and a dessert. We cooked together for most of an afternoon. Not only did she carefully explain what she did and demonstrate how to do it, but also she provided background on ingredients and nutritional value. It was an amazing culinary experience, devoid of food pretension, preciousness, and fussiness; it was surpassed only by the flavors of the various dishes that we had prepared. A truly peak and very personal experience for us. And as a bonus, Elisa provides copies of the recipes.
Ermopoulis is an authentic city. It is not dominated by the tourist industry and has not been scrubbed and polished so as to give every selfie the perfect background. There is impressive architecture and natural beauty, and there is also graffiti, dilapidated buildings, and cats, lots of cats. There is a shipyard and large ships and ferries coming and going and blowing their horns. There is a hustle and bustle of residents going about their daily lives oblivious to tourists. But for us, this is what made the city and Syros a realistic experience, dramatically different from the crowded, “must see” cruise-ship islands. And if one chooses to visit Syros, one could not stay with more generous and welcoming hosts than Kostas and Elisa at their lovely and special Villa Maria.