Peloponnese

Peloponnese Travel Guide

The Northern Peloponnese -- with Olympia, Mycenae, and Nafplion among its jewels -- is blessed with rugged natural beauty and the intriguing remains of great kingdoms and empires of past eras. Separated from the north by a narrow isthmus, the Northern Peloponnese comprises the Argive peninsula, jutting into the Aegean, and runs westward past the isthmus and along the Gulf of Corinth to the Adriatic coast.

Practically a stone's throw from the Corinth Canal spread the vestiges of the ancient city of Corinth, and just south of that is the superbly preserved 4th-century BC Theater at Epidauros. You can appreciate its perfect acoustics during the annual summer drama festival. Olympia hosted the games that originated here in 776 BC, and this sanctuary of Zeus and once-thriving city has lost none of its appeal; art lovers flock to the archaeological museum to marvel at the Hermes of Praxiteles.

Even more ancient is the city of Mycenae -- the fabled realm of Agamemnon -- where you can explore the Lion Gate and other archaeological discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann. Mycenae's satellite, Tiryns, was also a center of wealth and power as early as the 17th century BC. Later empire builders -- Byzantines, Venetians, and Turks -- created the city of Nafplion, with its harmonious assemblage of medieval churches, Turkish mansions, stone stairs, fountains, tree-shaded plazas, and mighty offshore fortress.

It's not that the southern realms of the Peloponnesian peninsula aren't endowed with their fair share of ancient splendors. The scant remains of Sparta -- the city-state that made war and austerity its motto -- are here, as are the hilltop Temple of Apollo at Bassae, the intact walls of Ancient Messene, and the even older Mycenaean ruins of Nestor's Palace. But medieval monuments of mellow stone make the most striking statements in this sun-drenched landscape of olive groves and mighty mountain ranges.

Mystras, whose golden-hue palaces and monasteries adorn an herb-scented mountainside, saw the last hurrah of the Byzantine emperors in the 14th century. Monemvassia, another Byzantine stronghold, clings to a rock that seems to erupt from the sea; the town's narrow streets tempt you to linger for a night or two in a centuries-old house.

Much of the region's charm has nothing to do with past civilizations, though. The pretty ports of Pylos and Methoni dispense a Greek tonic of blue sea, cloudless sky, and sandy beach (the beaches in this region are some of the finest and least developed in Greece). Gythion is the gateway to another world altogether -- the mysterious Mani, a wild region that plunges south across barren mountains to land's end and the entrance to the mythical Underworld. Tower houses jutting from the Mani's craggy landscape are reminders of the clan feuds of centuries past.

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