Visiting Ruins on Peloponnesos

12 December 2023 – Porto Kayio, Greece

For the past week, we have been sailing down the western coast of the Peloponnese and visiting some of the many Ancient Greek ruins on the island. In Katakolo, a town that was mostly empty for the season, we docked against the town quay and rented a car. The next day, we drove for about an hour to ancient Olympia, the site of the original Olympic Games which took place every four years from 776 BCE to 393 CE. The site still has the remains of the temple of Zeus and the temple of Hera, as well as complexes to house the athletes and other accommodations for visitors. The temple of Zeus was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World due to the massive statue of Zeus inside it, which no longer exists. Still, it is possible to picture the grand scale of the temple because of the massive Doric column still standing. We were escorted around the site by the temple dog, who was adorable.

Philippeion at ancient Olympia – Peloponnesos, Greece

After leaving Olympia, we drove up into the mountains on narrow curvy roads to the Temple of Apollo Epicurius. It is basically in the middle of nowhere, situated on top of a mountain and surrounded by rural valleys. This is a large part of why so much of the temple is still around; it was out of the way of looters, so many of the pieces of the temple were still on the ground nearby when the site was discovered. The actual temple has been reassembled and is inside a tent, which was lucky for us because it was raining and the temperature was freezing on top of the mountain. We were able to appreciate grandeur of the temple up close, with rows of thick pillars surrounding the centre walls of the building. It even houses the oldest Corinthian capital (decorative section at the top of the pillar) still preserved, though we couldn’t see it because we weren’t able to go inside the temple.

Temple of Apollo Epicurius – Peloponnesos, Greece

Outside the Temple of Apollo Epicurius – Peloponnesos, Greece

The next day, we sailed to the town of Pylos. We stayed in an abandoned marina, though because the docks are made of concrete everything is still intact and it is full of boats. It has no amenities but it is free and a great place to hunker down for the winter if necessary. We rented another car there, this time a tiny one that barely had enough horsepower to go up a small hill, but it did the trick. We first drove to the ancient city of Messene. It is my favourite Greek site that I’ve seen so far, and also one of the most intact because it had been nearly untouched by later settlements. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were the only ones there. We entered on a hill overlooking the ruins of the city, which were beautiful – there is a stadium, a palaestra (gym complex), an agora (market), a mausoleum, and a Roman villa. The pillars surrounding the palaestra are nearly all intact and standing, so we could see almost the entire layout of the building as it would have been in ancient times.

Messene, Peloponnesos, Greece

Palaestra at Messene – Peloponnesos, Greece

Stadium at Messene with the mausoleum in the background – Peloponnesos, Greece

In the afternoon, we drove to the ruins of Sparta, though there wasn’t much there as it is still being excavated. I wanted to see it anyway because of how significant Sparta was as a city-state in ancient Greece, and because the fortified town of Mystras was only a short drive away. Mystras is a medieval fortress on a hill, with amazing views of the surrounding valleys as well as beautiful churches. We had to rush through it, though, as we arrived close to the closing time.

Fortified town of Mystras, Peloponnesos, Greece

The next day, we drove to Nestor’s palace, ancient Mycenaean ruins from over three thousand years ago. It got its name from The Odyssey, as Homer described a palace belonging to the ancient king Nestor in the area. Today, only the bottom section of the walls are in place, but we were able to walk on bridges suspended above it to take it all in. There is even a bathtub still intact in one of the rooms, where Odysseus’s son Telemachus was bathed when he visited the palace in The Odyssey. The palace was destroyed by fire around 1200 BCE, baking the clay tablets with writing on them and preserving them, making them the first Linear B tablets to be discovered in the area.

A short walk away is a Mycenaean tholos tomb, towering out of the ground in the shape of a beehive.

Bay of Navarino tholos tomb – Peloponnesos, Greece

In the parking lot outside the site, we got super excited when we saw a dog that looked a lot like Sirius, who we had adopted on the Peloponnese six years ago. The whole time we were on the island we had been keeping our eyes out for dogs who looked like him and we saw a few that were pretty similar, but this one could have been Sirius as a puppy. Before heading home and returning the car, we drove to the opposite end of the bay from where Festina Lente was docked, hiking to the headland and walking around a medieval fortress.

Bay of Navarino, Peloponnesos, Greece

Back in town, we went out to a little Greek restaurant for dinner, which was delicious. We also bought a five litre jug of olive oil from the man at the marine store, who said he had made it from his own olive trees last week. My mom and I had planned to make latkes and sufganiyot and have a big Hanukkah dinner, but as we ran out of water and the harbour was too dirty to run the water maker, we decided to postpone it.

Yesterday was our last night on the Peloponnese. We anchored in Porto Kayio, which was less of a town than a collection of buildings closed for the off season. The surrounding hills and cliffs were beautiful and we went on a nice walk.

Porto Kayio, Peloponnesos, Greece

We sailed to the island of Kythira today are heading to Crete tomorrow, where we hope to spend a good portion of the winter.