20–26 April
Monday–Sunday

The Final Countdown

Our time here in southern Messenia is sliding away. We look forward to our next set of visitors on May 1st, Ann’s brother David and wife Lyndsay, followed soon after by sister Lena with her travel partner. In the meantime we have a car, a full tank of fuel, and a lot of ambition.

Chrysokelariá

Monday was a kind of recovery day from the overindulgences of Easter—Jonathan copyedited at the campground on Anemomilos Beach, making the best of an extremely windy day. With too much surf for swimming and even too much wind for sun-bathing, it was a day of mixed ambitions. We watched a windsurfer standing on the shore, his board and sail lying lifeless in the sand, a neoprened adventurer staring longingly out to sea. He was immensely patient, seemingly determined, but in the end discouraged by the pounding surf. “If I could make it past the first 100 meters, I’d be o.k. It’s a great wind for sailing. But I don’t think I’ll make it.” He packed up his gear after several hours of a losing staring contest with the open ocean.

By Tuesday afternoon we were all feeling a bit stir-crazy. Jonathan asked Dimitri and Yiorgia for directions to an unexplored village where we could enjoy a post-siesta cafeneion outing, and they were unanimous in their choice: Chrysokelariá.

We set off at around 6 p.m., heading on the main road toward Koroni. At the peak of the mountain, just before the road took it’s sharp descent toward Koroni and the ocean below, we cut off on a rough track into the hill country. A series of hairpin turns and then the snow-covered peaks of Taygetos came into view—a sharp contrast to the deep blue of the Gulf of Messenia.

We drove into the village center and then poked around on foot in search of the only cafeneion—as it turned out we had passed it on the way into town. When we arrived, Manny and mom ordered super sweet capuccinos; the girls had lemonitas, and Jonathan settled down to Messeni’s own potent elixir.

Rainy days

Lucia and Jonathan visited Dimitri at the butcher shop before noon, with road maps in hand. He helped us plot our course for Thursday’s trip to ancient Olympia. After leaving his shop we stopped at the taverna that is being remodeled by Anastasia with the help of our British friend Chris—at forty-plus years old, it is said to be the oldest in Finikounda.

Months earlier she had mentioned to us that we might be interested in looking at her mother’s abandoned stone house on a hillside deep in the valley, far from the village buzz. She invited Lucia and Jonathan into her house, which is located above the taverna. We followed her up a narrow, circular metal staircase to the roof, then walked to the back edge, cognizant of the forty-foot drop to the street below. “Do you see that hillside there?” She pointed off toward the rolling hills north of Finikounda. “Do you see that stand of cypresses, and the clearing below? The house is about there. Tell me if you have any trouble finding it. If you’re interested we can talk about it. It has a tremendous view of the sea. Watch out for snakes.”

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We have taken an unfortunate detour toward last month’s inclement weather—downpours and thunder punctuate a Mediterranean blue sky and fleetingly tantalizing summer temperatures. None of the locals complain: the rain makes the olives grow, and olives and the oil they produce are their livelihood. The rain fills the cisterns, which allow some defense against drought and wildfires. Last year it rained just once or twice between February and November, and last August there were several days with temperatures over 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and prolonged weeks with the temperature over 100 degrees F.

The downpour came and went several times on Wednesday. Jonathan “took advantage” of the lousy weather by working all morning, then he drove to Methoni with Lucia and Manny in the “Lamborghini” (aka Fiat Punta) in order to check the progress on the citizenship process, which started in earnest several weeks ago.

Grigori at the demarchio (municipal office) had contacted the authorities in Kalamata concerning our request. “The problem is that you will need to register your father first. I’m not sure how we do this.” Jonathan’s father died seven years earlier—a minor detail. “And you need to have your birth certificate translated into Greek.” A kindly and helpful official, Grigori led us to the nearby symvolografios, the notary public, who promised that this would be accomplised by Monday--or maybe Tuesday, certainly by Wednesday. If not...by early next week.

The rain fell heavily through the afternoon, but by 5 p.m. there were signs of clearing, so Jonathan set off for a run into the valley in search of Anastasia’s mother’s old stone house. Neither Manny or Lucia were willing partners on this particular trek. (As it turned out, Jonathan was caught in a downpour at the furthest possible distance from home. At least it wasn't snow..)

Jonathan followed Anastasia’s directions as best he could, but after nine miles of “mountain goating” he had not found the house—but witnessed some stunningly beautiful stretches of mountain footpaths, with broad views of the hill country strewn with wild flowers and the expansive sea below.

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Ancient Olympia

We set off for the site of ancient Olympia early Thursday morning. Rain threatened from the start. We followed the coastal road from Pylos, passing through the gritty seaside village of Marathopoli, passing a multitude of tidy olive groves in a rich red soil. As the rain started, streams of red crossed the roads. We stopped briefly in Filiatra, a larger seaside city that features the goofy fantasies of a self-made local man who returned from the U.S. in the 1960s, his fortune in hand, to build (among other “creations”) a one-fifth size replica of the Eiffel Tower.


After passing the last of the larger seaside cities in the western Peloponnese, Kyparisia, the devastating fire damage from the 2007 wildfires became apparent—entire mountainside forests were reduced to burned out skeletons, large swaths of blackened sticks, many small villages encircled by black scars on an otherwise verdant landscape. From this point north and east, the horrors of the fires are evident. During the 2007 fires, 160 lives were lost, more than five million olive trees were destroyed, 700,000 farm animals perished, and many thousands of local residents were left homeless. It took little imagination to conjure the horrors of those days—the attempts to flee windblown firestorms on narrow mountain passes. The worst affected areas were the villages between Elea and Zacharo. It was a very sad site to behold.

We followed the signs to modern Olympia, a serviceable village that caters to the multitude of tourist buses that come and go daily. Lucky for us, the skies cleared for our visit and the numbers of visitors were relatively small. While we didn’t have all of Olympia to our selves (we had been so spoiled at ancient Messene among other sites), there was still plenty of room to move about.

Olympia is one of the most beautiful ancient sites in Greece, located in a luxuriant valley with olive and plane trees, nestled between the Alphios and Kladhios Rivers, astride the Kronos hill, which was covered with enormous pine trees, purple wildflowers, and crimson poppies. Jonathan last visited ancient Olympia in 1974, as a summer camper.

Occupied since Neolithic times (archaeologists have dated one house there to 4200 bce, but the museum is chock full of finds that are much older: tools, votive offerings, pottery, etc.), by around 1000 bce Olympia was a well-established sanctuary to Zeus, the head of the Olympic pantheon. In the early centuries, entrance to the sacred precinct, the walled rectangular space known as the Altis, was limited to free-born Greeks. The main focus was the great Doric temple of Zeus, built between 470 and 456 bce—a structure nearly as large as the Parthenon in Athens—which stood intact until a major earthquake struck in the middle of the fifth century ce.

Entering the site, along the west side of the Altis, we passed the Prytaneion, the administrators’ residence, where athletes were lodged and feasted. The next major structure and the only circular building at Olympia, the Philippeian, was built by Philip II of Macedon and completed by his son Alexander the Great. It commemerated the Macedonian victory at Charonea against the Thebans and their allies.

A little further, we passed by the temple of Hera on the way to the ancient stadium. Along the path to the stadium are the Zanes, sixteen bases that once supported bronze statues of Zeus. The statues were built from fines levied against athletes who had cheated in the Olympic Games—with their names and offenses carved in marble on the bases. Any athlete entering the stadium would have had to pass the Zanes, which served as warnings of the consequences of cheating. If only the modern Olympics had kept this tradition alive!

The approach to the stadium itself is through a long tunnel and archway. We must admit that we did what all tourists do at Olympia: we ran on the track!

Spectators at the stadium (it was said to have held 45,000 freeborn men—the women occupied a distant hill) sat on the sloped grass—only the officials themselves had a proper seating area.

Leaving the stadium, we worked our way to Nero’s Villa, a temporary residence of the Roman emperor in 65 ce. The villa replaced an earlier sanctuary of Hestia. It features a peristyle court, mosaics, and arched roof. The Roman baths there are well preserved.

On Nero’s orders, the Olympic Games were held in an off year—so that the emperor himself might “compete” in the chariot race. Nero was said to have won the event, but in truth, he crashed his chariot, the other competitors were disqualified, and he was declared the victor. He also competed (and won) musical “events”—which were created for his benefit alone.

Without a doubt, the centerpiece of ancient Olympia is the temple of Zeus. Constructed in the Doric style, the periteral temple was built between 470 and 456 bce, and contained an enormous (12 meters [nearly 40 feet] tall) statue of Zeus, designed and executed by the renowned sculptor Pheidias. The statue, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, was made of gold and ivory. It stood in the temple, unmolested, for more than six hundred years before it was carted off to Constanintople by the Romans and eventually “lost” (that is, stolen and parted out).

Near to the Temple of Zeus is the Workshop of Pheidias, where the enormous statue of the god was fashioned. Olympia’s museum has many finds from the workshop, including carved bone tools used in making the statue of Zeus. The workshop was transformed into a Christian basilica in the fifth century bce, following the banning of pagan festivals and ceremonies by the (now) Christian emperors of the “New” Rome (Constantinople).

We wandered amid the flower-strewn ruins of Olympia for several hours, leaving by way of the gymnasion, a practice area for foot races, javelin, and discus, which dates to the Roman period.

After strolling back to modern Olympia, we found a table at an outside restaurant, the sun now thankfully having burned through the overcast and warming all of us—we enjoyed gyro sandwiches, fried potatoes, and a horiatiki salad before setting off on a perilous mountain road, in fog and intermittent rain, to the temple of Apollo Epikourios (“the healer”) at Bassae.

Temple of Apollo Epikourios (Bassae)

Built by the Phygalians, in gratitude for being spared the plague that devastated most of the Peloponnese in the middle of the fifth century bce, the temple of Apollo Epikourious (“the healer”) is located on a plateau at about 1200 meters (3700 feet) above sea level. It is a remote place and an extremely well-preserved Classical site—surely one of the most spectacular in all of Greece. A long list of superlatives could be used to describe the site, the overall setting, and the temple itself. Now a World Heritage Site, the entire temple has been shrouded in a large canopy since 1997, an effort to halt the distintegration of the limestone structure and the slow subsidence of its foundation while restoration is completed.

Getting there was 90 percent of the adventure—we passed through several remote and very beautiful villages, on an ascent that featured hairpin turns with dizzying descents—and there were no shortage of shrines marking the mishaps of unlucky drivers.

Sweet Home Kalamata

It was well past dark when we return to Finikounda. We logged a little over four hundred kilometers in all, much of it in heavy rain. We treated ourselves to dinner at the Finikounda gyro shop, which is run by Lucia’s horseback riding teachers, Alexandros and Dionysia. Manny and Jonathan were especially taken by a CD that blasted out a Greek version—note for note, with lyrics—of the Lynryd Skynrd tune “Sweet Home Alabama.” We dubbed the Greek version “Sweet Home Kalamata.”

Life is a Beach…

The weather has not cooperated entirely for beachgoing—we have heard enough discussion of how this is the most rainy spring in forty-five years—but we have still taken advantage of each day: especially as our day of departure approaches. We swim in the ocean nearly every day, rain or shine, and tan lines (for some of us at least) are a thing of the past.

After an afternoon at the beach, we drove deep into the valley and found Anastasia’s mother’s house—or the remnants of it. Two large walls stand on the edge of a bluff with a commanding view of the valley below and a broad sweep of ocean, islands, and headlands. It is a spectacular “fixer upper” for the truly ambitious.

April 23rd is Saint George Day, and we did our best to give our best wishes to all those named Georgios (male) or Georgia (female) that we know in Finikounda—we counted seven, including the priest. Our landlady’s husband is a Georgios, and so Jonathan was invited upstairs at 11 p.m. to take part in the celebration: an enormous variety of foods, sweets, wine, cheese, olives and some very entertaining villagers. Although he had only met a small handful of the celebrants, they all knew Jonathan’s name (aka Yianni) and the story of his family and their visit in the village.

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Methoni Catacombs

Located just outside of Methoni, on a rock outcropping about ten minutes walk from the main road, one can find Christian catacombs dating from the second century ce. On Saturday morning we made a special trip there, hiking with care through the high grass. Although damaged by time, moisture, and Communist partisans (c. 1947), the remnants of Christian iconography—saints and biblical stories painted on the walls and ceiling of the caves—is evident. The view from the catacombs, looking south toward Methoni, is spectacular.

Birthday Party

Lucia and Evyenia have made some good friends with the local children who attend Finikounda’s demotiki school. The two were invited to Poppy’s birthday party on Saturday night. Poppy’s father, Ilias, runs the Internet café, so the party was held there, right on the waterfront.

Panayiotis’s Ktima

Among the first people we met in Finikounda was Panayiotis, an elderly gentleman-farmer and a much-respected elder in the village. On several occasions he has given us bags of produce from his ktima (property), located in the hills above Finikounda.

On Saturday evening he asked if we would like to see his property on Sunday morning. Ann, Jonathan, and Lucia followed him up a path to a property that his great-grandfather acquired in the 1830s, when he (along with most of Finikounda’s ancestors) escaped the Turkish oppression in Crete to settle this part of the Peloponnese.

He showed us a few of his 1,700 olive trees, several dozen sheep, gardens, fruit trees—and tremendous views of the open ocean. “Many of the Europeans have asked me how much money I want for this property, or a part of it. You know, Yianni, a man’s land is his heart: without it, he is nothing. I would never sell even a single strema (quarter acre) of this land. It was a gift from my great-grandfather.”

Among the most special plantings are several red fig trees. “My great-grandfather brought these seeds from Hania, Crete, in 1830. Look at them now!” They are towering trees with fantastic canopies.

“This land is a gift from God. Each month the Lord gives us a new fruit: lemons, oranges, apricots, figs, and so on. I do not use any fertilizers or pesticides here, because they would destroy God’s garden.”

Panayioti, in his earlier seventies, climbed a lemon tree and filled a bag with fruit for us; filled another bag with green onions and lettuce; gave us 20 or so fresh eggs; and promised to deliver some of his homemade wine in the coming days.

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