Greece: In the lap of the gods

But as a place to laze in comfort, it fulfilled its purpose and our welcome seemed all the warmer in that we had not succumbed to scare stories about Greece's economic turbulence.

Getting there

Package: Classic Collection Holidays offers seven nights for two persons sharing all-inclusive from Gatwick from £909 per person in May at the Oceania: and £942 pp at the Olivia. For a family of two adults and two children leaving on July 23, a junior suite for a week at Oceania will be £6,554 and a panorama junior suite at Olivia £7,844.
Tel: 0800-294 9321

We had soon set up camp by the new adult infinity pool. A second adult pool has since been added and the outdoor pools will be heated this year.

Swimming to the rim, we could draw in the view: over the olive and pine-tops, to the sea where children slid down slides fitted to pedalos, to the shadowy mountains beyond.

Here we could watch divebombing swallows treat the pool as a giant birdtable, so fast that only the ripples revealed that their beaks had touched the water.

We had no need to move as waiters were always on hand to take drink orders and even wipe our sunglasses. Such was the standard of service throughout that when my son Joshua ended his first tennis lesson with a blister, a receptionist went into town to get a special plaster.

Periodically, we rose for a meditation class - we didn't expect chanting mantras on a mat to be so demanding; or a massage (spa treatments are not included); or a game of squash. If the steps to the parasols on the Oceania beach were too steep, you could always call for a buggy.

To evade the sea-urchins inconsiderately colonising the rocks, sandbag paths offered safe passage into the water.

When the day's sunning was done, on a breezeless night, trees still as statues, we could catch some candlelit, poolside jazz. The resort is so spacious that while this was a family resort with close to 300 rooms, we never felt the noisy press of children.

Most evenings we were happy eating in the adult section of the main buffet restaurant, which had a choice of fish, salads and vegetarian dishes, from dakos - Cretan rusks topped with tomato and feta -to courgette fritters.

All-inclusive also covers four, smaller themed restaurants - for us, the Greek the best - and the option of dining out at a taverna in nearby Nea Moudania. The only drawback was a three-day wait for reservations in the speciality restaurants.

Anyone too late for the 11am breakfast deadline could still find an almost never-ending supply of snacks.

Sister resort, Ikos Olivia, has the same facilities as the Oceania as well as a seafront buffet restaurant and an amphitheatre for evening shows. It is greener and flatter, with stone bungalows spread among the gardens. Our daughter Deborah, who stayed with her young family, has rebooked this summer, impressed particularly with the child care provided by Worldwide Kids Company for her boys, then aged one and four.

The weekly market at Nea Moudania is reachable from the Oceania by shuttle bus or 25-minute stroll.

Picturesque the town isn't but we were lucky enough to see it on the night of the Sardine Festival when locals spilled onto the streets and dancers spun round the central square.

Among the frying doughnuts and roasting corn, a stallholder defied EU sourpusses with a "Sorry for Partying" t-shirt. In front of a quayside folk band, a dancing grandmother showed she still had rhythm as smoke from barbecued fish and meat rose thick into the night.

We were glad that we interrupted our languor to take a morning tour of Thessaloniki (Salonika), three quarters of an hour away. From the acropolis a magnificent panorama sweeps across the sloping streets of this historic port to the sea. Even before Paul evangelised here at the dawn of Christianity, Jews had settled from Alexandria. After the ruling Ottomans gave them refuge from inquisitorial Spain, Jews became the majority - a rarity in a European city. The false Messiah Shabbetai Zvi turned up in the 17th century, peddling his dangerous brand of kabbalism.

Although much of the Jewish quarter was destroyed in the great fire of 1917 and the Nazis visited further destruction, the Jewish Museum housed in one of the surviving buildings is testimony to a rich and sophisticated heritage. The community could once boast its own fire brigade, whose members smile proudly around their cart out of a photo. In a display case, a bottle of kosher-for-Pesach Ouzo advertises Judaism with a local flavour.

In the smaller of the two synagogues serving the 1,000-plus community of today we were invited to light a candle - a practice we had not encountered before in a synagogue.

At the old station where most of Salonica's Jews were deported to their deaths in the war, we stood silent by the memorial plaque.

Long bank queues spoke of contemporary financial woes. But the bustling cafés and delis brightly packed with dried fruit and nuts showed a city still beating with life - one we wished we had had more time to explore.