Messenia's new resort showcases the best of Greece

(Costa Navarino)

The new Navarino Dunes complex opened this week, offering two luxury hotels and Greece's first signature golf course amid Messenia's sun-drenched olive groves.

The new Romanos and Westin hotels are inspired by Messenian mansions and have been built as low rise villa clusters, using natural stone to showcase the local architectural features.

The Romanos Hotel features 321 rooms and standalone villas, all with free internet and large screen televisions and many with private infinity pools.

When the Westin Hotel officially opens July 1, the hotels will offer 776 rooms and eight restaurants between them.

In the centre of the two is Agora, an authentic village centre offering everything from outdoor "dinner theatre" to a fully blown amphitheatre and a range of shops, cafes, bars and restaurants.

The developers say that Anazoe, the 4,000 square meter onsite spa, combines ancient Greek medicine and philosophy with modern scientific treatments.

Guests can opt for light therapy, ice-grotto rooms, mist showers, herbal saunas, floating pools and kinisiotherapy.

For those unsatisfied by the beach and infinity pools onsite at the hotels, just outside the cluster is Golf by Troon, a new course designed by former US Masters Champion Bernhard Langer which offers the largest green in Europe.

Later this year, a second course is set to open, designed by noted course architect Robert Trent Jones II.

Navarino Dunes is the first quarter of the ambitious Costa Navarino complex, which aims to increase tourism to the largely undiscovered Messenia region.

The next phase is Navarino Bay, which is set to open in 2012 and will include yet another golf course, a Banyan Tree resort and another unspecified five star hotel.

www.romanoscostanavarino.com
www.westincostanavarino.com
www.costanavarino.com