When I first got the media trip invite to Costa Navarino from Wild Discovery, I started googling the location and the resort and quickly fell in love with it, but trust me, the resort and the whole installation are far more wonderful to experience than read about in reviews or see in pictures, and the weekend getaway I spent there was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable ones I’ve had ever since my honeymoon euro trip back in 2013. As I said, it’s hard to describe how beautiful the place is but I’ll try to take you through my whole experience there and share amazing pictures that will make you want to take the next plane and head there (it’s only 2 hours flight away).

The Resort:

The Westin Resort Costa Navarino is a huge luxury resort located in a beautiful and untouched area of Messinia in Greece. The 5-star resort has 450 rooms and suites all designed and inspired by old Messinian mansions and enjoying an unobstructed sea view, add to that a multitude of facilities and recreational activities. I counted 5 restaurants, six pools, a playground for kids and sliding pool, tennis courts, two huge golf courses and a gorgeous spa. The rooms are clean and spacious, the staff is extremely friendly, the service is excellent, and everything is so calm and serene everywhere you go. To be honest, I thought I’d get bored in a relaxing resort but that wasn’t the case at the Westin Resort. You could walk for hours inside the resort and discover every day new things to do and new places to see.

The beach is a must-visit of course as it’s sandy, very long and quite amazing and you can spend the whole day there. There’s also this small bar with quite a dreamy ceiling that I highly recommend you pass by. Also what’s quite impressive about the resort is how eco-friendly it is and the management’s commitment to the environment. We were even told that every olive tree that had to be taken out to make way for the resort was planted elsewhere carefully.

Food & Drinks

The best meal I’ve had at the Westin Resort was the first one. We had just arrived after a long bus trip and the breakfast buffet was almost closed so we asked the staff if they could get us omelettes and they brought us something out of this world! I still don’t know the exact ingredients but it was really good.

In terms of restaurants, we tried Flame, Kafenio and Morias. Flame is a fine dining restaurant that overlooks one of the gulf courses and serves excellent steaks. All the dishes we tried were quite good and I enjoyed the Greek Labneh more than ours (Blasphemy!). Kafenio is specialized in Greek Mezze specialties which I didn’t appreciate much except for the pork-based dish. As for Morias, it was an international buffet dinner and a delicious one. Their wine (1827) is quite good by the way.

We also had the chance to visit a traditional home in the town of Pylos and learn from local women how to cook authentic family recipes. It was a fun experience followed by a full dinner and then a Zorba dance outside the house. Needless to say, the local women and my friends were mind-blown by my dancing (and cooking) skills.

Attractions & Things To Do:

As I stated earlier, the resort has two golf courses and we had the chance to visit one of them and try to hit some golf balls. It was much harder than I thought it would be, considering I’ve only played mini-golf in real life and golf on Nintendo Wii. We had an experienced player teaching us how to hold the golf club and make the swing and I got the hang of it after 10 or 15 tries. It was a fun experience and I want to give it another try at the Beirut Golf Club since I was told you don’t need a special membership to get in.

Aside from playing golf, we were taken on a boat trip to explore the gorgeous Messinian coast aboard a sailing boat. It was a 4 hours long trip but it felt like a 20 minutes one as I enjoyed every single bit of it. The ride was smooth, the beaches and coves were quite incredible and we enjoyed a good swim in the middle of the sea. Sadly enough, I was chatting with one of the crew members who told me that hundreds of illegal migrants arrived to Pylos aboard a tiny boat last week thinking they were going to Italy. Apparently, Greece has received over a million immigrants in the past couple of years.

As far as touristic sites are concerned, there’s an old medieval castle (Niokastro) in Pylos worth visiting as it overlooks the whole Ionian sea where the famous naval Battle of Navarino took place. You can take some amazing shots from up there. Moreover, there’s a small beach (Voldokilia) that a lot of people visit for some reason even though there’s nothing special about it (except that there’s a spot for nudists there but I didn’t see any).

The verdict:

The Westin Resort is a dream resort located on a sandy Ionian coastline and surrounded by beautiful landscapes. You will find a bit of history in everything around you while experiencing luxury and relaxation. If you are looking for a peaceful weekend getaway or a fun weekend with the family, this is the ideal place to go. The boat trip is highly recommended, the golf experience is worth trying but the best thing you can do is just sit back, relax and enjoy the view from your balcony or just wander around the resort and enjoy the beach.

It’s the ultimate place to wake up on a Friday morning but I don’t recommend you come back on a Monday because it will take you a couple of days to get back in a work mode.

For those of you who are interested in visiting this resort this summer, Wild Discovery has all the information you need [here]. Costa Navarino is part of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts and we flew Aegean Airlines.

PS: On a side note, what made this trip even better were the other media members, mainly Rami who’s a great guy and a funny one (even though he overslept and was late on two occasions), dreamy and charming Pascale, my new crazy friend Vanessa, fellow blogger and friend Daniella who’s always fun to hang out with, and of course our awesome guide and my good friend Johnny.