Greece's Rugged and Wild Mani Peninsula

Leaving Monemvasia at about 11am, our hotel for the the next night was in the middle of the Mani peninsula in the town of Areopoli. The plan for the day was to drive along the Mani peninsula coast, check out the sights and make our way to the hotel. Just outside of Monemvasia we stopped to get gas, which was 60 euros for 3/4 tank. Luckily our rental car was a hybrid and we got really good mileage throughout the trip. 

Our first stop along the route was a shipwreck near Gythio, a nice little seaside town. The Dimitrios is a cargo ship that ran aground in 1981, and has become a bit of a tourist attraction. You can walk up to it and peer inside, and the rusting metal hull now serves as a canvas for graffiti. After strolling along the beach and checking out the boat, we continued a short way down the road to Gythio. We walked around for a bit and stopped in a bakery for a snack.

Dramatic views of the shipwreck.

So much graffiti.

Peering inside the rusting hull.

The Gythio seaside.

Driving south from Gythio we ventured into the Mani peninsula, where we would spend the next 24ish hours. This is the central peninsula of the Peloponnese, with the southernmost point of mainland Greece. It's also, by some measures, the second most southern point of continental Europe, just slightly higher in latitude than Tarifa, Spain. Mani is often referred to as "rugged," as it is relatively sparsely populated, and ancient legends included tales of monsters and the entrance to the Underworld.

We continued down the eastern side of the peninsula, with beautiful mountain and sea views as we traced a path along the Laconian Gulf. Passing through the village of Kotronas there was some construction that closed the road, but we found a bypass. Further south we stopped at a little tavern to stretch our legs, and got a coke zero for the road.

As we continued, we had beautiful sunny weather. The southern part of the peninsula had lots of stone walls, goats and cows (sometimes in the road). We reached the farthest south you can drive, Cape Matapan. At this point we were actually further south than the African cities of Algiers and Tunis (but still north of Atlanta). We parked and walked a bit, but we didn't have time to hike all the way to the actual tip, where there's a lighthouse. Instead, we saw a little beach and some ruins. Public service announcement for sunbathers, if you're sunbathing on the rocks without a beach towel, please don't do so face down or a couple tourists might spend a few minutes trying to decide if you are a corpse or not...

Turning back north, this time we drove along the western side of the peninsula. We passed little villages with stone tower houses (called pyrgoi in Greek), and then arrived at Vathia - a picturesque mostly abandoned little village with many stone tower houses perched on a little mountain. We walked around a bit and took in the views before continuing. 

View of a seaside town.

Just some cows!

Historic stone tower houses dot the peninsula in little groups.

Another stone tower village.

Goats and stone walls.

Overview of Cape Matapan.

Donkey in the road!

Some ruins near the very bottom of the peninsula.

Approaching Vathia.

More goats!

A lil cat friend in Vathia.

A restored portion of Vathia.

It feels like they're trying to convert parts of Vathia into a tourist stop, but it's mostly empty for now.

One of the stone tower houses in Vathia.

David with a cat. Again.

We then drove to our hotel, Armantanis. We really enjoyed this hotel. It's a little compound in the hills just outside Areopoli, and is designed with local materials to evoke the stone tower houses. It was really classy and quiet, with a beautiful view from our balcony across olive groves to the sea. 

We drove the short distance to Areopoli and walked around a bit. It's a small but cute downtown, with a pedestrianized area with bars and restaurants. We poked into two little churches, and then had a cocktail at Aula, and dinner at Spaka. We had fried feta, chicken with orange and olives over pasta, mushroom chicken over French fries, and a glass of local red wine.

View from our hotel balcony.

Sun rays on the sea.

Our hotel.

A tiny church on the square.

Loaf cat in Areopoli.

Inside one of the little churches.

Sleepy Areopoli kitty.

The main pedestrian street in town.

 A little quiet in the shoulder season.

Areopoli is super cute.

It got a bit chilly as the sun went down.

Dinner time!

Our hotel at night.

Monday morning we had an amazing breakfast at the hotel. Since so few people were staying there, rather than setting up a buffet in the lobby they essentially brought a buffet out to our table in the courtyard. The very nice staff person must have seen the look on our faces, because she quickly said "don't worry about eating too much, you can pack what you don't eat!" We did indeed pack most of it to go!

Setting off for the day we had a short drive to the Diros caves. This is a popular tourist attraction, but we arrived not too long after it had opened and there was no line. The unique aspect of these caves is that most of it is flooded. You take a boat ride and then there's a short walking section. There were some people from Florida on our boat who were more interested in talking about Florida (and how in Florida the cave would do this or that) than paying attention to the actual cave they were in. Once you exit the cave there are really nice views of the sea.

We then drove north, which was a pretty drive on winding roads. We decided to stop at an off-the-beaten path site we found on google maps, Katafigio Cave. This is a coastal cave that is not developed at all and has no parking lot. You walk down a short but steep path to get to it. The coastal views were great, as the rocks are in unique layered cube shapes. We only walked about 10 feet into the cave because it's dark and undeveloped. 

What a breakfast spread! David is pondering what to do with it all.

Paul loves a good cave!

The little boats for the cave tour.

Floridians on the cave tour.

Cave reflections.

David in the walking section.

Beautiful views of the inlet when leaving the cave.

Nothing says the Caves of Diros like this lady with a sickle running at you!

Passing a town on the drive.

The interesting coast at Katafigio Cave.

Two caves in one day! Paul's lucky day.

Looking into the cave.

David by the sea.

We then stopped by some random tide pools next to the town. Another benefit of having a rental car and being able to stop at random things! The area seemed to have mostly German tourists walking and biking around. There weren't many animals in the pools, but we did see some fish and crabs. 

After wandering around for a bit, we headed up the hill with the car to a nearby brewery. There aren't a ton of breweries in Greece, so we figured it'd be worth a chance for Paul to try some local beer. This spot - the Mani Brewery - had a really nice view out to the sea and some ok beers. We hung around a bit and ate leftover breakfast snacks and David made another cat friend that we fed some cheese and meat from our stash.

A little tide pool.

Tide pool area.

Walking back to our rental car near the tide pools.

Tasting flight at Mani Brewery.

Paul taking in the sights (and flights).

Lil cat friend at the brewery.

View of the town from the brewery terrace.

From there we started to head towards our hotel for the next two nights in Kalamata - yes the namesake town for the olives! Along the way we stopped in the tourist town of Kardamyli. There was a small jazz festival happening so there were a lot of older (mostly German) tourists. There were a few small shops that were cute but not too much else going on. On the way out of town we made a stop at the "old town," which is a preserved area with restored buildings that operate as a small museum about the lifestyle of people on the Mani peninsula in Byzantine and Ottoman times. While here it started to rain so we spent time ducking in and out of buildings. This rain would be a common occurrence over the next two days of the trip, unfortunately.

Leaving town, we drove north again, which was a rainy but pretty drive cutting through some mountainous terrain spotted with towns, and a misty mountain gorge with some nice views.

Kardamyli street scene.

The Kardamyli old town - basically a small museum.

Great views from the museum in the old city.

Restored tower - a pyrgoi.

So ended our brief time on the Mani peninsula. Our next stop late in the afternoon was Kalamata, where we stayed for 2 nights. Overall, the Mani peninsula deserved more time than we gave it in this somewhat whirlwind trip around the Peloponnese. Areopoli was a very nice town, there were lots of great things to see along the coast and up in the mountains. There were lots of places to hike or nature to see that we didn't have time to do this trip. I think we'll be back, maybe with an RV camper and a week or two of time to spare someday in the future.