Olympia and Mountain Towns in the Central Peloponnese

After breakfast at the Kalamata hotel, we hit the road again and drove to Olympia, the site of the original Olympic games in the 8th century BCE. Olympia is a popular tourist site, and for good reason. It has plenty of historic ruins, two excellent museums, and well-developed tourist infrastructure. You can easily park once and walk to all of it. On our visit, it was not too crowded, but there were certainly more tourists and tour buses than any of the other ancient sites we visited. In particular, there were a lot of German tourists. Not sure if that's the norm, or just a coincidence on the day we were there.

We started with the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, which is very nice. It has a wide array of artifacts from the site, and a spectacular central hall lined with figures from the pediments of the Temple of Zeus. The other big item in the museum is the statue "Hermes and the Infant Dionysus." This statue is from around the 4th century BCE. It was buried by an earthquake in the third century, and rediscovered in 1877. Unfortunately, the famous Statue of Zeus at Olympia, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was destroyed some time in the 6th century.

We next walked around the ruins. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the site was full of trees and purple flowers. The main site here is the remains of the original Olympic stadium, but there's lots to see as you wander the site. 

Cool Griffin head in the museum.

David in the museum.

Peering into your soul.

The main hall of the museum.

Both sides are lined with the pediments from the Temple of Zeus.

Quite the cast of characters!

Hermes statue.

Mosaics in Olympia.

Olympian Paul!

Purple flowers and rows of columns.

David enjoying Olympia.

A lil lizard friend. Beware the cats!

Like many of the ancient sites we visited, the scenery is fantastic.

Entrance to the stadium.

The remains of the original Olympic stadium.

Columns and flowers.

After exploring the main museum and the archaeological site for a couple hours, we walked into the main part of town and had lunch before briefly popping in to the small Archimedes Museum. We did a little tourist shopping before walking to the Olympics Museum. This was another good museum, although it could use a little update as it looks like most of the exhibits were installed for the 2004 Olympic games. Leaving the museum, Paul fed wet cat food to a new cat friend in a grassy area (we had bought it at the grocery store the night before to befriend another cat).

The area around the town was very pretty.

Lunch dolmadakia.

And a gyro for good measure.

Country flags line the street in Olympia.

The Archimedes Museum.

Sick burn bro! (middle paragraph quote)

One of the main halls of the Olympics museum.

A really cool mosaic of Olympic sporting events.

Olympians with an attitude.

Again, Olympia is a place you could spend a few days - and not just the 6 hours we gave it this trip. There are other things to see and do nearby and the coast isn't too far as well. Food for thought for future trips to Greece! This was, overall, one of the most delightful tourist areas we visited in Greece.

Leaving Olympia, we drove east through the mountains. It was a pretty drive on winding but well-maintained roads, with very little traffic. We stopped at a couple of overlooks, and made an impromptu stop at the village of Lagkadia. There was a very nice little tourist shop, and we bought some gifts and a jar of "Greek submarine" not knowing exactly what it was. Turns out it's some kind of classic fondant sweet meant to be put on a spoon and dipped in water. We were not fans...interestingly, we recently found this at a Turkish/Greek/Lebanese food store in Atlanta. We passed this time. 😉

Driving through the foothills.

Heading up into the mountains.

Rusty cross and gorge.

Afternoon sunshine.

So many great views on this drive!

The main part of Lagkadia.

A map of the mountain hiking trail network. There are some old bridges, waterfalls, monasteries and gorges to explore in the future.

David is an equal opportunity animal petter. Here he is with a dog on the square in Lagkadia.

Nice local goods store on the square.

Patriotic.

After looking around for a bit, we drove the rest of the way to Dimitsana and checked into our hotel for the night. It was very quiet, with just one other couple staying in the hotel on this shoulder season week day. We had a fantastic view of the gorge from our balcony. Sunset was approaching, so we went for a little hike up the Menalon Trail. This trail is well marked (with red square signs) and goes right up the hill from town. We dodged some sheep and got barked at by a herding dog, and had a fantastic sunset view of the town from the little church at the top of the hill.

After the sun slid behind the mountains, we walked back down and strolled around town for a bit. Dimitsana is a cute town but there's not much to it - it's really a stopping point for regional hiking and outdoor activities. There are a few shops and a few restaurants, a couple of which were closed for the season. We had dinner at To Steki Tis Yefsis (which translates to "The Taste Place"), and luckily were one of the last parties seated before they closed for the evening. The taverna specialized in local foods. Paul had a wild boar dish and David had chicken souvlaki, and we shared some okra and a "spicy" cheese dip. The family next to us was Swedish and there were various other non-Greek tourists eating in the restaurant as well. 

After dinner we went into a couple of shops along the narrow streets. We loved Denada's Workshop, a small and adorable shop with art from the owner (a young Albanian-born woman) and her friends. We bought a couple of clay cups. Back at the hotel we had some wine and looked at the stars from the balcony, but we didn't spend much time outside since the temperature swiftly dropped to 50F. This mountain village is a great chilly break from the warm coastal Greek weather!

Can't beat that balcony view!

Paul's a fan!

A narrow little street in Dimitsana.

Did we mention Dimitsana is cute?

Sheep watching us on the hiking trail.

Sunset views of Dimitsana.

Paul above town.

David is a cat magnet.

Almost back into town.

Dinner time!

Okra.

Chicken souvlaki and boar.

Night sky views from our balcony.

Thursday morning we had breakfast at our hotel. David was not feeling super well, so we started the day slowly. We checked out and drove to the Open-Air Water Power Museum just outside town. This museum was part of the same group of cultural museums as the Olive Oil Museum we visited earlier in the trip in Sparta, sponsored by the Piraeus Foundation. The museum had nice exhibits mostly about how water was used in the traditional tanning and gunpowder industries in Dimitsana. There was a school group there as well, and it was cute to see the elementary to middle school age kids wandering around the site.

After leaving the museum we made the short drive to the next town over, Stemnitsa. This town is small but has a cute little square. It was not busy but there were a few tourists that came to the cafe we went to for coffee, hot chocolate and snacks.

Overview of the open air water museum.

One of the rooms showing water powered simple machines.

We followed the water from the museum down to a trail.

A common theme in Greece we've noticed is interesting chimney toppers like this rooster one near Stemnitsa.

Central square of Stemnitsa.

Of course there were cats!

After wrapping up a short break in Stemnitsa, we then drove out of mountains, with nice views and pine forests along the way heading back towards Athens. There were very few other cars on the roads today, giving the road trip a sense of isolation and adventure up in the forested mountains. The weather was overcast and chilly, but luckily we didn't get rained on. The last sites on the way to Athens and 36 hours in the capital city to be continued!

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.