Floating like a huge plane leaf just below Central Greece, Peloponnese might technically be Greece’s biggest island, and yet you would be forgiven for not realizing so. Here the scenery is as dramatic as it is magical with impressive fairy-tale-like stone castles crowning almost every hill peak and cliff-hugging monasteries nestling in the most improbable crevasses and precipitous drops. Rolling hills seclude lush plains full of olive trees or citrus groves whose uniformity is only disrupted by patches of pointy dark green cypresses. And suddenly as you thought it can’t get any better you hold your breath when you face the majestic, snow capped Taygetus mountain range dramatically rising in front of you, splitting Peloponnese in two.
While true Peloponnese connoisseurs and culture aficionados head straight to the refined neoclassical Nafplio, the first capital of modern Greek state and one of the world’s favorite small cities, the more adventurous types might prefer the haunting solitude and primitive roughness of Mani’s stark landscape with its one-of-a-kind tower houses. Those enticed by turquoise waters and warm stretches of powdery sand will probably scoot off to Messinia which boasts some of the finest beaches in Greece, while hopeless romantics might opt for a special getaway in the impossibly romantic dimly-lit alleys of Monemvassia, a medieval castle-city tucked in a roundly shaped floating rock, often called Greece’s Gibraltar. One thing is certain. No matter which region of the Peloponnese you choose to visit you will bump onto traces of its tumultuous past; Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Venetian and Ottoman Turks, all left behind spectacular souvenirs including some of Greece’s most famous sights - the ancient amphitheater of Epidaurus with its mind boggling acoustics which revives each summer during the Athens festival, the magnificent classical temples at Nemea (which by the way also boasts one of Greece’s finest wineries), the famous Olympia, birthplace of the olympic games, the epic Mycenean palaces from where King Agamemnon set to conquer Troy (and incidentaly get back his wife), the massive walls of Tiryns allegedly constructed by the giant Cyclops or Nestor’s palace at ancient Pylos. Peloponnese is also the land of Sparta, the glorified ancient mighty military machine, of picturesque and frozen-in-time bucolic villages overflowing with traditional local produce and where silence is only interrupted by the melodic tingling of sheep bells. It is the part of Greece that many tourists dream about but few experience; your only real dilemma won’t be “to visit or not to visit” but rather which region to visit first and after that…when to come back.
