Monemvasia and beyond: A Road Trip through coastal Arcadia and Laconia

Ah the Peloponnese! An area surely blessed with its towering mountains, clear seas, cypress and pine forests, olive groves, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, caves, castles, archaeological sites… Steeped in history from the Homeric bronze age, classical and Hellenistic times, through Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman invasions to modern times. This year we explored the southeast side of the peninsula, the areas of Arcadia and Laconia, including the medieval town of Monemvasia.

ARKADIA

From Athens, the highway takes you to Argos, where the road follows the sea until the beach of Astros

Astros is a pleasant beach. In the distance at the top of the hill is a 13th century castle You can climb up there any time and walk around the ruins to get a spectacular view. (It seems that hills in the Peloponnese are made for Byzantine castles, some well cared for, others not.) For castle fans, another reason to love the Peloponnese.

Sabatiki

After Astros, the road takes you south toward Leonidio,. A few kilometers before, a tiny makeshift sign (you would surely miss the turn unless you’re looking specifically for it) points you down a long and winding road to Sabatiki, or as we called it during our stay, Samba pa ti, after the beloved song by Santana.

At the end of the road, there’s a place to dock your fishing boat. Before you lies a sheltered bay of deep blue. Along the beach, about 10 houses only.

Looking to get away from it all? In Sambatiki the main sound is the waves lapping against the shore. A few places rent rooms, there’s one cafe and one taverna, Porto Sabatiki, with no sign at all, as if a sign will somehow destroy the quiet and bring hordes of visitors. This is where we’re staying, above and in back of the taverna. There’s a large kitchen area and balcony. Here’s the view:

When we arrive, the taverna is hopping. The teenage sons of the owner are running back and forth serving. Dinner though when we sit down later is a quiet unhurried time, with kalamarakia, horta (greens), fresh sardines. And their specialty, eggplant saganaki (baked in tomato sauce with melted feta).

It turns out the portions are huge and we eat about half of what we ordered for lunch the next day.

The Porto Sabataki offers sunbeds and shade right on the beach. Just chill, take in the scenery and swim in the always calm waters.

At night you can walk along the dock with the boats and back. That’s about it. There are a few Greek families with small children. I imagine in August the small beach must be full of kids shouting and splashing in the water.

Or maybe not. This solitude might not appeal to everyone. Still, I feel a little torn talking about Sabatiki. The travel writer’s dilemma: spreading news about a beautiful out of the way place and suddenly it’s not unspoiled any more…

Leonidio

It’s a short drive to Leonidio, the largest town of east Arcadia. As you approach, greenhouses are spread over the landscape, growing tomatoes and potatoes and of course the vegetable that the town is known for: the aubergine or eggplant. It’s the long thin variety, the tsakonika. Every August there’s an eggplant festival, which makes Leonidio unique. (How many towns have eggplant festivals?)

How do I love thee, aubergine? Let me the count the ways: stuffed, broiled, fried, baked with other vegetables, with cheeses, pureed, smoked, wrapped in phyllo…

Besides being known for eggplant, the impressive setting of Leonidio, with its red limestone cliffs, has made it a popular place to go rock climbing.

The town has kept the old stone mansions from the late 18th, early 19th century.

One more characteristic sets Leonidio and surrounding villages apart from the rest of Greece. The people trace their lineage back to ancient Doric tribes They have a special language spoken nowhere else in Greece, known as Tsakonian. I don’t know if there any people around who still speak this, but there are signs

Around the blue clock on market days local produce is sold

We didn’t try to engage anyone in the language, mainly because when we were there on Sunday morning.it was anything but bustling. Aside from a few coffee drinkers in the plateias, I got the feeling people were in one of the beaches, and that’s where we were headed too.

Plaka is the closest beach but it wasn’t crowded there either. As almost everywhere we went, we were glad we had with us the shoes that you can take into the sea, to protect our feet. Definitely don’t expect sandy beaches along the east coast.

A little further on is the beautiful beach of Poulithra.

Another attraction of Leonidio is outside the town, on the mountain road through Mt. Parnon, that takes you to the village of Kosmas. It’s the Monastery of Panagia Elona that hangs from a cliff over the Dafnonas ravine. Here’s what it looks like. Pretty impressive. Be sure you leave time to drive up there from the road. Preferably not in the summer heat.

Legend says it was built in 1300 when two shepherds found an icon in a cave of the Virgin Mary. The monastery through Ottoman times was a kind of spiritual refuge, a center of resistance and education. It’s much like the monastery of St. John the Baptist (Prodromos) in the Loussios Gorge. You can read more about this 12th century monastery, the Loussios gorge and other sites from a trip through western Arcadia here.

Kosmas is known for its main square with three large plane trees giving shade. These magnificent trees were planted in 1882 by an “illiterate rural constable” who wanted to improve what was growing there at the time. As the sign tells us, at the time there was only “an old half rotted walnut tree, two miserable willows and an old apple tree.” We have this constable to thank for really, these jewels of Kosmas.

From Kosmas we’re eager to make our way southeast to Monemvasia, surely one of the most striking places to visit in not only the Peloponnese, but in Greece.

LACONIA

Monemvasia

Sometimes known as the Gibraltar of the East, it also reminds you of Mont St. Michel in Normandy. To give you an idea of its size, it’s about 900 meters tall (close to 3,000 feet). And the rock holds a secret. It hides a well preserved medieval town that’s only visible from the sea, not from the mainland.

Once, Monemvasia was connected to the mainland but a very strong earthquake in 375 AD separated it.

It began to be inhabited in the late 6th c AD by mainland residents who wanted to live somewhere they felt was secure from “barbarians” so they carved this city out of the rock and moved there. They built a stone bridge that was only replaced in the 20th century by a narrow causeway.

By the 10th century, Monemvasia had become a naval and commercial center, exporting silk and the local Malvasian wine. So Monemvasia was the commercial center of Byzantine Morea (the medieval name for the Peloponnese) while the spiritual center was Mystras (an incredible Byzantine site you can visit near Sparta).

We’re staying in the Aktaion Hotel right on the other side of the causeway in what’s known as Gefira (meaning ‘bridge’) or also known as Nea Monemvasia. We have a good view of the bridge and rock and beach area.

You can take a car or motorcycle across the bridge, but where are you going to park it? Almost impossible to find a place. Now a shuttle bus goes across and takes you right to the gate, to the only entrance to the castle/state. Thus the name “moni (only) ’emvasia (entrance).”

So, let’s explore the town a little bit. Get on your good walking shoes and get your leg muscles ready for up and downhill.

There’s a small room that sells some books on Monemvasia and maybe offers information, but it’s very low key and almost hidden like the town itself.

Right inside the entrance to the castle is the house where poet Yiannis Ritsos lived as a child, now a museum. You don’t want to miss this look at Monemvasia’s most famous inhabitant.

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At the age of 12 Ritsos left Monemvasia to go to school in the town of Gytheio.

Poetry was his way of dealing with childhood tragedies — family financial ruin and illness. Both his mother and older brother died of tuberculosis (Ritsos himself was in a TB sanatorium for several years) and his father and sister struggled with mental illness.

His other support, besides poetry, was his embrace of communism in the 1930’s. His life and his art were really impossible to separate.

In May 1936, a demonstration of tobacco workers in Thessaloniki touched him deeply and provided inspiration for his long poem Epitaphios, a poem of lament.

He describes the effect on him of seeing a picture of a mother holding her murdered child in her arms. Childhood memories, religious laments, Greek folk songs “were mixed inside me and a wave of unspeakable grief of a real lament (epitaph) emerged….I didn’t sleep or eat for three days and nights, writing the poem…”

The 30’s was not a good time to be a communist in Greece; his poem was burned publicly at the Temple of Zeus, with other “leftist” publications. During the 1950’s, the poem reached the public when it was set to music by Mikis Theodorakis, who also wrote the music for Ritsos’ post World War II poem, Romiosini (Hellenism), where he celebrates Greek identity and the struggles of common people and their connection to the land.

This landscape is merciless like silence
it hugs its fiery rocks tightly in its bosom
it hugs tightly in the sun its orphan olive trees
and grapevines
it clenches its teeth. There is no water. Only light

When Ritsos died in 1990 in Athens at the age of 81, he was buried in the Monemvasia cemetery. Very fitting — from here he can gaze over the Aegean for eternity. K9 He had written his epitaph much earlier in 1969 during the years of the junta.

He said: I believe in poetry, in love, in
death,
which is precisely why I believe in
immortality. I write a verse,
I write the world; I exist; the world
exists.
A river flows from the tip of my little
finger.
The sky is seven times blue. This
purity
is once again the prime truth, my last
will. (tr. N.C.Germanaco)

Although he spent many years away from Monemvasia, his birthplace, he talked often of the influence in his life of this “stone boat,” as he called it with its landscape “harsh as silence.”

Out on the terrace of Ritsos’ house, it’s hard to take your eyes from the cubist looking stone houses and deep blue of the Myrtoo sea.

Down the steps from the museum, let me take you through the main street of the town, Full of souvenir shops to be expected, some restaurants, cafes. The main color on the street is a pink, from both the flowers and the pastel of many house facades.

Everywhere doors and little alleyways make you want to stop and explore.

They have tried to keep the architectural features of Venetian and Ottomans in the renovated houses of two or three stories. In this land of little water, the lowest level was always the cistern for collecting rainwater.

The street is actually pretty empty. Cats slink around everywhere.. The Bar Malvasia is part of the Malvasia Hotel, which has rooms at various places in the old town. Malvasia is the Venetian name for Monemvasia, and the name of the most well known wine of the area.

In this startling scene, this cat (almost camouflaged in the picture) was tired indeed. When we passed by the same spot an hour later, it was sleeping with its head facing the other direction.

The main square is very stark, just a cannon and archaeological collection (which was closed) in the building of a former mosque.

The church is the main one of the town, the 16th century Elkomenos Christos, or Christ in Chains…. It’s used sometimes for weddings. When we left, we saw a wedding party assembling near the gate to enter the town.

There are supposedly 40 churches in Monemvasia. The churches are actually the main attraction — this pamphlet shows most of them.

Most of the churches look purely Byzantine, abandoned and surrounded by wild flowers and shrubs.

I see some tourists carrying long thin hot dogs. Is this a mirage? No, there’s a Street Food place right past the square. I give it a try. An amazing hot dog, obviously broiled not boiled. Who would imagine, here in Monemvasia.

Besides the small number of permanent inhabitants who live in the lower town, many more come and go — hotel guests, those operating tourist stands and food places.

The upper town, which you can reach from steps leading off of the main path, is totally deserted and has been that way since the 1821 revolution. You get a quiet mysterious feeling traipsing among the ruins. If you go all the way to the top, you’re rewarded with Saint Sophia built into the rock and terrific views.

From the square, you can also go down to the ramparts. Watch your head as you walk through some vaulted arches known as dromikes.

Keep following the path along the south wall and you wind up at “Portello,” meaning little gate, the only sea gate through which they transferred goods. You can swim off the rocks, like in many islands.

Before leaving the medieval stone world of Monemvasia, we head up again to the terrace of the Ritsos house/museum. It’s late in the day so you can see the light has softened. From here, the houses remind me a little of the town of Matera in southern Italy.

Returning back to the new town, for dinner we eat at the Asterias taverna right on the beach. The wine, Tsimbidi, after Malvasia, is the most popular of the region..

The salad was mouth watering and a prelude to zucchini fritters, eggplant saganaki and vegetable risotto. All delicious and with an unbeatable view.

We practically had the taverna to ourselves. There’s more action on the other side of Gefira, with its lovely promenade with other tavernas and cafes and a small marina. The next night from there we were treated to the full moon rising over the water.

Neapoli

The road south of Monemvasia along the coast passes rocky shores with isolated houses built here and there and of course groves of olive trees. This is especially olive country.

We’re on our way to meet for lunch our friend Connie, whose family comes from this area and has a house in Neapoli, Also joining us is old friend Yvette Jarvis, former pro basketball player in Greece, singer, model and political activist, who’s visiting Connie. Neapoli, a town beautifully situated on Vatika Bay, is an ancient city but the earthquake that separated Monemvasia from the mainland, destroyed the town and it wasn’t really rebuilt until after the 1821 war for independence.

Photos below are courtesy of Connie.

Neapoli’s relation to the sea has shaped its character. Its fishing boats were well known throughout the eastern Mediterranean. A landmark of the town is the Vatika sailor, who stands tall and proud at the base of the pier.

We were in Neapoli around 10 years ago, swam in the town beach across from the boat that goes to the island of Kythira and took the little boat from Pounta beach that goes across to Elafonisos (Deer) island, a major attraction of the area.

Back to the present. We met at the Limenaki taverna with its super fresh fish and delicious food.

Here’s the Tsimbidi wine again and on the plate, a red mullet, zucchini fritter, fried zucchini (it’s the season after all!) and horta (wild greens).

Besides taking a little boat to Elafonisos, some other places in the area are not to miss. One is Pavlopetri, the oldest sunken city, dating from 5000 BC! Neapoli is near Cape Maleas, which is known for its storms. The Cape Malea lighthouse is the second southernmost after Cape Matalan (also known as Cape Tenaro) in the Mani (the middle leg in the Peloponnese) Here you can read more about our visit to the beautiful Mani peninsula.

Cape Maleas is always stormy. In Homer’s Odyssey, Book 3, Telemachus tells of his rough voyage with Menelaus from Cape Sounio to Cape Maleas:

“…when he too had got away over the wine-dark sea in those great ships of his and had run as far as the steep bluff of Malea, Zeus, who is always on the watch, took it into his head to give them a rough time, and sent them a howling gale with giant waves as massive and as high as mountains.”

But there’s to be no howling gales for us, we’re going back to the calmness of Monemvasia after our pleasant lunch, rest and have a swim at the beach near the hotel. It’s here on the road, approaching from the south, as you get closer, the hidden town appears off in the distance.

Kyparissi

For years the best way to get to Kyparissi (meaning cypress tree) in the northeast corner of Laconia, was by boat. Back in the 80’s when we first came to Greece, the once-a-week boat that left Piraeus and went to Leonidio and Monemvasia, on the way, stopped at Kyparissi. Then the regular boat was replaced by the daily “Flying Dolphin,” (which a 2005 guidebook writes this is the most popular way to get there or with private yacht), but gradually the hydrofoil was stopped as there weren’t enough passengers to make it worth it.

Arriving by boat certainly has its charm and style. Those of us though who don’t have access to a private yacht though, need to take the road At least it’s better now than it was.

However, the road is still not for the faint hearted. There is even a spot,” writes Matt Barrett in his long running helpful website Greece Travel, about Kyparissi, “that so terrified even a seasoned professional Athens taxi driver that he had to be led down the mountainside by keeping his eyes on my rear bumper and not looking at either side. This road and the lack of a boat have kept Kyparissi as unspoiled as a Greek coastal village can be.”

Leaving Monemvasia, we start out along the coast, but soon find ourselves in Agios Ioannis, a pretty stone village with a bakery, mini market, cafeneion, even a taverna but seems empty. An elderly man is sitting in front of a house squeezing lemon onto a large bowl of horta (wild greens) and starting to eat. It’s 11 am. “Oh you’ve gotten off the road!” he says, still chewing.

We stop and talk a bit, he bemoans the usual village complaint that the young people have all left, leaving the elderly. “What will happen when we all die out?” It’s a sad thought and there seems to be no solution to this problem of small villages throughout Greece.

Back on the right road, we pass the village of Geraka, where the mountains look as if ‘they’re plunging right into the sea. The setting is on a lagoon which is rich in shrimp, crab and eels.

Not a soul on the road except for a trailer with Italian plates.

We pass bushes and bushes of bright pink flowers and stone formations. Some villages are well kept, others crumbling.

There’s a sign for the “Nunnery Evagalistria.” “Get thee to a nunnery!” Much more quaint than “convent.”

After Vlyhada, the road winds inland to Richia, where there’s a folklife museum.

This is how most of the road is, with dramatic views down of the Myrtoo Sea. The road is well paved, it’s just that it’s hardly wide enough for two cars. It’s full of hairpin turns, sudden bends in the road and some overhanging rocks…

Approaching Kyparissi. When you get to Harakas, you know you’re almost there. After we descend, we dive into the sea.

After our oh-so-refreshing swim, we walk around the small port area.

The bottom part of this resident’s house was turned into a cafe. As we walked down, I saw on the small menu outside the door ‘blueberry muffins.’ Very intriguing and not at all Greek. As we walked up from the port, I saw he had closed. The mini market and one of the tavernas had also closed for siesta time.

One more swim on our way home at Poulithra, the pretty beach south of Leonidio.

Clouds start moving in, even some scattered raindrops.

We appreciate the raindrops on the way back, as if telling us, “vacation over, time to go home!” (Though vacation is never over in Greece, it just continues in different forms.)

The Peloponnese is suddenly “in” from the release of Christopher Nolan’s film “The Odyssey,” some of which was filmed in the beautiful southwest part of the Peloponnese. You can read more about “sandy Pylos,” as Homer called it, and the castle town of Methoni in my post “Peloponnese Wandering and Hospitality: Pylos, The Palace of Nestor, and Venetian Methoni.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you. Enjoy your summer…

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Sherri Moshman Paganos is a writer and former educator, inspired by her life in Athens, where she and her husband are happily retired and enjoying their travels in Greece and abroad. You can check out her writing — fiction, non-fiction, poetry and articles here.