Kalamata & Messene

The next stop on our Greece road trip was Kalamata. Kalamata is the second largest city on the Peloponnesian peninsula with around 60,000 people. It has a nice city center with a long pedestrian park/shopping area, a large cathedral, an old castle and a handful of small museums and other sights. Unfortunately for us, it rained off and on the entire time we were in Kalamata, which limited our time wandering around the city.

We checked into our hotel in the mid-afternoon. This was our "splurge" hotel for the trip at the Elysian Luxury Hotel & Spa. This hotel was just outside the city proper, by the sea. It featured nice little rooms with outdoor patios and individual pools. We were hoping to use the pool, but the cool rainy weather prevented that this trip.

After checking-in and resting a bit at the hotel we drove to the city center to visit the Archaeological Museum of Messinia (the name of this regional unit of Greece). Once we parked, we made it to the museum which is on the site of the old market that collapsed in the 1986 earthquake. The museum was very nice but very hot. We saw one of the other visitors (a man from the UK) leave to stand outside for a bit because the heat was too much for him. This was after his wife scolded him for trying to walk around the museum with an unbuttoned shirt! We also checked out a little church right next to the museum that was rebuilt after the earthquake. 

It looks inviting but we were never able to use it. Maybe a summer trip is in order.

Interior of the Archaeological Museum of Messinia. It was organized by sub-region, which we liked.

We do love a good mosaic!

Church of the Holy Apostles across from the museum.

Interior small church vibes.

This is what the church looked like after the 1986 earthquake.

Mural of some revolutionary Greeks.

Central Kalamata.

The little owl of Athena is common throughout Greece and this one wins a prize for being the cutest!

After looking around we walked a few blocks over to the main church in Kalamata (The Metropolitan Church of Ypapanti), which was built in the late 1800s after the previous one burned down in 1770. After looking around the central square we strolled down a commercial street to do some souvenir shopping.

After shopping we grabbed a beer at the Rodanthia Rock and Roll Bar followed by dinner at Kapileio.  Here we had a nice local salad - Kalamantiani with fried bread, smoked pork, fig, currants, and honey. We also got some fried zucchini and eggplant to go with some chicken with peppers. After dinner we went back to our car and headed to the hotel.

Interior of the Metropolitan Church.

The Metropolitan Church of Ypapanti at sunset.

Look what we found at a bar in Kalamata!

Restaurant and bar street in central Kalamata.

Paul at Rodanthia Rock and Roll Bar.

Kalamantiani Salad.

The pool at night looked inviting, but it was still cold and rainy.

The next morning (a Tuesday) we had breakfast at the hotel, and then drove to Messine. The sprawling site has ruins from the bronze age and classical/Spartan era, as well as the remains of Roman and Byzantine structures, and an impressively intact stadion (track and field stadium). Messine is one of the larger and more interesting archaeological sites of classical Greece and is worth a stop if you're in the area. Some structures were partially reconstructed to provide scale and the nearby mountains and fields gave the site a very pastoral vibe.

It was an overcast day but the rain held off for the morning, and the site took on a magical quality with the billowing gray clouds enveloping the tops of the surrounding green mountains. The site was not busy at all, so we had plenty of space to wander around and appreciate the ruins. Before leaving we went to the adjacent small but nice museum.

Oh look, we found some cats at our hotel!

European hotel breakfasts? Yes please!

Just a dog in the road.

Our first views of Messene from the road.

Very scenic countryside.

Remains of floor mosaics, probably Roman.

Lots of mountains and cloudy atmosphere for the day trip.

Only the lower benches of the theatre remain, but it's still very impressive.

Column remains.

David is supreme counselor of Messene.

Partially reconstructed ruins.

Messene has a lot of columns.

Reconstructed structure.

Us at the stadion.

The odeon.

Inside the museum.

After exploring Messene for a couple hours, we drove back to Kalamata to look more around the city center and to explore a linear park/shopping area that leads from the area near the cathedral most of the way to the sea. It was surprisingly hard to find parking. There were lots of parking spots, but they were all taken, and cars were double and even triple parked. We had to park much further north than we wanted. Parking is free in Kalamata, perhaps charging for parking in the core area might help? Also, it was rainy, which may have encouraged more people to drive rather than walk or bike.

Speaking of rain, that was a bit of a damper on our day exploring Kalamata. We walked along the main street and square, and had some coffee and a pastry/sandwich. We walked some more in the rain, which was not pleasant, and saw the very wet railroad park, which has old trains. We stopped in a little wine shop and then walked back to the car. Kalamata seemed like a nice and lively town, so the rain was a bummer. We spent the afternoon just chilling in the hotel until the rain stopped. At dinner time we tried to walk to the couple nearby restaurants on the sea but they were both closed, possibly because it was the shoulder season or possibly because of the cold and rainy weather. Instead we drove to large supermarket and got some snacks and other interesting stuff. We count grocery store visits as a cultural experience!

Some parts of central Kalamata had nice new streetscapes to encourage walking.

Olive, tomato and cheese sandwich.

A few people with umbrellas braving the rain in the main square of Kalamata.

There were lots of train cars, but it was raining so hard we had to cut our visit short.

Wet rainy feelings at the railroad park.

The iconic streetcar in the railroad park. You can find this on tourist items.

Grass cat!

So long Kalamata! You were super cute - but also super rainy and cold. This is another area you could probably spend a week exploring. About 45 minutes to the west there were a few other archaeological sites, beaches, waterfalls and sea caves we were hoping to visit but the weather and timing just didn't allow for it this trip. This was also our goodbye to coastal Greece. Our next destination would be in the rugged interior of the peninsula before winding back towards Athens to wrap up the trip.