EVENTS

Luxury and glamour in hotel lobbies during the festive season - The Margi Hotel

GREECE

INFO

One of the characteristics of good hotels is always the ability to transport guests to a parallel reality. Luxurious carpets and well-lit corridors lead guests into a world where they can leave their everyday lives, the hustle and bustle, and the gray of the city behind.

Royal Olympic Hotel

From the early years of their appearance, modern hotels were associated with urban development and visitors arriving in cities. At the same time, the construction of luxury hotels with modern amenities was a sign of local economic development.

Special rooms host conferences, events, exhibitions, their restaurants and cafes become meeting places, and, perhaps more than anything else, bars become places of entertainment – emblems of entire eras.

Divani Collection Hotels & The Margi Hotel

However, the festive days of Christmas and New Year are also a challenge for hotels to showcase themselves as part of the city's decorations. Christmas trees, lights, and festive decorations at entrances catch the eye of passersby and become the subject of photographs. This is even more so in regional centers, where hotel decorations play a central role as landmarks. The courtyard of the Divani Meteora hotel is dominated by a 12-meter Christmas tree, the largest in the area. And in Drama, the Hydrama Grand Hotel, already a landmark for the city, is decorated to welcome the holidays on the banks of the Agia Varvara wetland.

The interior decoration of the hotels is equally impressive, offering a unique accommodation experience, just as unique as the festive season itself. The already elegant halls take on an even greater splendor, which aims to, and usually succeeds in, drawing guests into the Christmas spirit. The name Santa's Hotels, given by Divani Hotels to their identity during this period, is indicative of this. In the hotel spaces, next to the Christmas trees, shiny Christmas balls, nutcrackers, and fairy-tale decorations, events are organized with music and always a specially prepared menu by the restaurant chefs. Obviously, the "stars" of the events are the Christmas and New Year's Eve parties.

Divani Apollon New Year’s Gala

For more than a century, the French word "réveillon" has referred to celebrations held in luxurious venues, aristocratic homes, hotels, and nightclubs on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. The roots of this custom can be traced back to medieval Western history, when the faithful stayed awake to attend evening services and dine, usually with a sumptuous meal.

Divani Collection Hotels: Juju Bar Restaurant Dinner

The custom of New Year's Eve celebrations appeared in Greece at the end of the 19th century, initiated by the large hotels in Athens, which welcomed members of the capital's aristocracy to their decorated ballrooms. This was a new and imported custom, as was the menu they offered, which was based on French cuisine, considered the most refined for the upper classes of the time. It is no coincidence that the hotel that brought New Year's Eve celebrations to Greece was the Grande Bretagne, a "neighbor" of the palaces and mansions of Queen Sophia and Panepistimiou Street.

Over the years, however, things have changed in terms of cuisine. Greek flavors have found their place on the menus of large hotels. Traditional sweets and recipes are offered alongside European dishes. The festive menu is probably the richest a visitor can try. Melomakarona, diples, kourabiedes, lamb, but also panettone, foie gras, risotto, Greek wines, champagne, and gluhwein. It is a challenge for hotels to present a menu with imagination, variety, and flavors!

The Margi Hotel & Hydrama Grand Hotel

By simply browsing through the recommended hotel menus, one can find flavors from all over the world: The Royal Olympic's New Year's Eve party menu is particularly noteworthy, offering spring rolls and garlic mushrooms with gruyere cheese in a festive, flavorful journey from China to Greece. Similarly, the Crowne Plaza Athens - City Centre hotel offers dishes that combine smoked salmon with horseradish sauce and turkey roll with sage, fresh butter, minced chicken, and apricot.

Crowne Plaza Athens – City Centre

The menus, sometimes à la carte and sometimes buffet style, are definitely a unique opportunity to experience flavors that are, if nothing else, unusual. In addition to sophisticated recipes, hotels organize parties with live music, as is the case at the Teight Hotel and Crowne Plaza, or with DJs, as at the Margi Hotel.

Divani Meteora Hotel & Mona Athens

Divani Collection Hotels

Another seasonal tradition is the Christmas market hosted at the Mona 's March Hotel in Psyrri, where a group of distinguished artists exhibit a variety of works of art, accompanied by delicious treats.

These days, hotels don't just complete the picture of cities, they play a leading role and show the way, a path adorned with music, aromas, and flavors...