Mel and I found ourselves in Athens last summer with a long week on our hands before embarking on our Yachts of Seabourn cruise to Istanbul (see post below). We spent a little time looking into going to one or more of the Greek islands. This was July, and the ferries were heavily booked, the flights totally booked, and places to stay were impacted as well. We put together a couple of scenarios none of which were super appealing since they involved long ferry rides and changing places to stay while on a given island. Our cruise was slated to visit three islands anyhow, so we looked elsewhere. We settled on the idea of renting a car and driving to the Peloponnese. This peninsula is connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus at Corinth which is cut by the canal of the same name. The peninsula is huge, around one-third of Greece. This is where mount Olympus is, Sparta and hosts of other historic places we all reognize, but which I could not have located within Greece on my best day prior to our trip there.
When we told our concierge at our hotel in Athens (the Hotel Grande Bretagne, a great property) about our plans he just lit up! He pointed out a couple of places on our map we should go, and off we went.
Driving in Greece is no problem. Almost all of the road signs are repeated in the Roman alphabet, so we were able to navigate just fine. We took the excellent expressway to Corinth and on into Peloponnese beyond. The terrain is mountainous and arid – reminded this Southern California boy of home. We had a copy of Alistair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay in Greece with us and found three very special places to stay indeed.
The first was on a road south from Tripoli (just love all the place names here!) down one of the fingers of the peninsula in the province of Laconia. The place is in the town of Gerolimenas and is named Kyrimai. The building is the home of the local quail baron – the cliffs have huge populations of quail which the region exports. A gorgeous stone mansion right on the water. We spent a couple of nights here and enjoyed the coastline:
By contrast to the islands this time of year, we were able to find places to stay without lots of advance planning – our cell phone was helpful – make sure you get or take a GSM phone.
Exploring the peninsula by car was really great. We drove through some remote and enchanting areas, the peninsula dotted with olive groves and villages, with herdsman and their herds of goats roaming the hills. We would picnic with Greek olives, cheese and bread and, of course, wine. The weather was excellent as well. Life is good here!
We managed to get to places so remote that we ran out of Roman-alphabet signs. Mel and I could both sound out the greek letters and form the sounds of the place names and then recognize them, but we would have to pull over and spend some time doing this. It was fun figuring out directions.
We then went to a small town name Kyparissi on another of the ‘fingers’ of Pelopponese. The drive over featured a herd of goats on the road:
The descent down to Kyparissi was scary! One lane with a sheer drop-off hundreds of feet to the ocean:
We met a vehicle coming up as we descended on a blind corner. Our palms were sweating!
The road was built in the seventies. Prior to that people came and went by sea or used the trail:
The town is simply beautiful, a small fishing town on a cove with the cliffs high above:
There are some beautiful houses right on the cove:
This town was a favorite of ours. Many of the people there were from the San Francisco area, locals who had emigrated years before and now came back for the summers.
Dining was a delight. We would sit, the waiter (son of the woman who did all of the cooking) would tell us what was available that evening, and we would order. It was always excellent, and unlike other countries in the EU we have travelled to, our US dollar went a ways here. Kyparissi is tranquil – what a great place to spend some time.
We left Kyparissi for Nafplion. This is an old Venetian city with Venetian architecture, a fine port and old forts surrounding it. The streets are fun, narrow and full of people strolling in the evenings and dining outdoors.
As we drove into town, we saw a small cruise ship and realized it was the Seabourn Spirit – the ship we would embark on the next day! That really excited us.
After a dinner of fish soup and lamb kebabs, we went to bed happy we had chosen to visit this part of Greece.