Of castles and (more) olives …

Methoni

After six weeks here we have been getting a bit stir-crazy. Winter time in rural Greece is very quiet, apart from the buzzing of chainsaws (a vital piece of olive harvesting equipment). We’ve walked to the nearest town (Koroni), our local village and supermarket (Harakopio), down to the beach, and to the other nearby villages. Many times. Though the scenery is lovely: olive groves, sea, sand, mountains, white houses, and more olive groves, we’ve felt the need to get out and explore.  We have taken the local bus to another nearby town but it is much the same. Luckily we now have use of a rental car so we put it to good use last weekend with a drive over to the other side of this peninsular.

Typical village

The Peloponnese are mountainous so most of the inland roads are narrow and very windy. The interior is almost exclusively olive groves. Very agricultural. So we headed due west across to the other coast, to the village of Methoni.

Now a quick historical interlude … after the fall of the Roman Empire (which controlled Greece at the time), the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine), out of Constantinople (now Istanbul) took over. They had some control of Greece until the start of the Crusades, one of which sacked Constantinople. The Europeans (collectively known as “Franks”) took over parts of the coast to protect their fleets on the way to the Middle East. The Venetians also arrived to build castles to protect harbours for their fleets. Then the Turk arrived during the Ottoman Empire and controlled Greece till the 1820’s when it became independent. Hence most of the castles dominate ports and were variously built and extended by Franks, Venetians and Turks.

Koroni and Methoni are “twin” forts, both built by the Venetians and later enhanced by the Turks. Koroni is impressive but Methoni is magical. It has the full walls around a peninsula with towers and tunnels to explore, along with the remains of some old buildings. It is big enough to have contained an entire town, though the French shifted that inland in the 19^th Century. The walls are very strong with many openings for cannon. At one stage 7,000 Venetians held out 100,000 Turks until four supply ships arrived. They got so excited (Italians!) that they rushed to the ships and left the walls, the Turks promptly overran the fort and butchered everyone.

 Note the three stone cannonballs

On a glorious sunny day we spent several hours wandering all over the place, and only met three other people there. Being winter, the gate was open and no admission charge. We recuperated at a nearby café where we splashed out on a real meal rather than the pastries we normal economise with - the meal was fabulous.  We sat outside in the sunshine, partly to avoid the smoke from the locals inside. While there an old guy arrived on his scooter to sell the café owner some vegetables, followed by a couple of guys in a van with a selection of cheeses, which we were invited to sample. In the past it was common for people to load up their donkey (or van these days) and spend weeks roaming around the countryside selling off their produce. Whenever we are in the local towns we often here a loudspeaker, it comes from one of these mobile shops advertising their wares.

Nice views - and more olives!

The coast road north is interesting – if you like olives – and it takes you to the attractive town of Pylos (or Pilos*), laid out by the French in the 19^th Century. We thought it the most attractive town we have seen recently, nicer than Koroni. It has a lovely deep-water harbour – Navarino Bay, the site of an Athenian victory over Sparta and, 2,500 years later, a naval battle where the Turks were defeated, which led to Greek independence. Along the northern edge of the bay are long sandy beaches with closed-down restaurants and the remains of a Frankish castle on a hillside. We almost made it walking up to the castle but got attacked by some vicious natives. Many bites later we retreated to the car and protection from those mozzies … they even dined through clothing, landing on us as we walked, despite the breeze!

Farnkish castle at Navarino Bay

Also near the top end of the bay is “Nestor’s cave” where many ancient Greek tablets were found dating from Homeric times. There is so much history here in Greece, mostly ancient as it is hard to tell how old the houses and towns are, but there are the various castle remains (13^th - 17^th Century), the odd Turkish-era well, quite a few old Byzantine churches, and then the really old classical Greek remains.

Olives arriving at the Mill

We wandered back home via some very windy roads in the interior past, you guessed it, mostly olive groves. The locals were out harvesting some and at one stage we came across a mill which was full of people and their piles of sacks. A good day out in the mighty little Daihatsu which may, or may not, have been insured. We ring up when we want the car (it is parked in our drive all the time) and the rental company are supposed to book insurance for the day. I suspect they only do it after an accident …

* Note that there are several different spellings of many place names as there is no direct transliteration from the Greek alphabet to our Latin one. Our local village is marked on maps as Harakopio or Charakopio.