Greece, continued: Southwest Peloponnese

This is our place in Oitilo on the Limeni Bay in the Mani peninsula, whose introduction by our vivacious hotelier, a former television news journalist settled here with her husband, a former judge, at first so disappointed us. High on the hill, no store or restaurant in sight, the view was certainly beautiful and the winds over the balconies pleasant, but what the hell would we do for four days? A lot of driving, I guess. Write a blog about the exciting time we had in Greece, elsewhere. In that entry, I said I hoped I'd eat my words about our time in this quiet place, and I now officially say, I'm eating them, and their sullen short-sightedness is absolutely delicious. 

We found enough to do that we never actually visited the town of Oitilo, or New Oitilo, never swam in our local beach, but once a day made an excursion and spent hours and hours in some exquisite location nearby before returning to the cool of our rooms and the sweeping views over the bay, our mornings sheltered in a terraced morning shade while the mountains turned to gold, an evening breeze blowing to us the certainty of our great fortune.

After a first evening in Aeropolis, we visited the famed Diros caves on Friday; the tower village of Vathia and paradise beach of Marmari before visiting the Death Oracle of Poseidon and mouth of Hades on Cape Tenaro on Saturday; then traveled through Kalamata and Pylos to our happiest surprise in Methoni; until we spent our last night in Olympia.

On our way to Oitilo, we stopped in Sparta, listening at the time to Menelaus and his wife Helen (she of the face that launched 1000 ships) telling Telemachus of his father. The younger girls were hot and grumpy and stayed by the car, but Stephanie, Sophie and I wandered the ruins of the Spartan acropolis and the gnarled olive trees everywhere around it, tall, barren mountains rising sharply nearby, and shared what little history we knew.

We then had lunch in Mystras, a World Heritage site for its Byzantine ruins. The kids were mostly grumpy, so we ate and got out. 

After putting our things down in Oitilo (and the kids' grumpiness contributing to my own), we finally started to decompress in Aeropolis, a town on the hill on the other side of the bay. From the main road and in this mood, we didn't see much. And we had trouble distinguishing houses from places of business from ruins, because in Mani, everything is made of stone because of all the sharp white rocks and boulders everywhere in the sea and on the mountainside and fields. Stephanie said she wanted to get to the heart of the town. I said, No, this is it. When we turned right, and Stephanie turned right, the whole vacation turned once more, and that grumpiness fell away for good.

Inside Aeropolis was a beautiful little village, protected from the road, its own quiet streets and tight corners, and its history proudly living on. We ate dinner in Revolutionary Square, where on March 17, 1821, the first flag was raised against the Turks, the start of the Greek War of Independence. Amelia's lamb meatballs and my stuffed peppers and the calm around us got inside my belly, and soon we all were laughing. The restaurant gave us yoghurt and honey and sweetened agave strips for dessert, which was so good and new, adventure and joy returned.

We did have an episode with the cats, though. In Nafplio and here too, there were vagrant cats everywhere. Now they were at our table begging. Amelia tried shooing one away and got scratched in the process, hurting and frightening her both. The cats were pretty tough. I could scare them away, but I couldn't simply push them away with my foot. Maisie had been afraid of the cats during dinner (Wendy, I blame you!), but after Amelia was scratched, Sophie just about cured Maisie of her fears because Sophie's own panic was so outsized and funny.


By the time we were on our way home, our view of Oitilo had changed.

We spent the next morning at the hotel that rented out our house, our host treating Stephanie and me to muddy Greek coffee and spreading out maps before us as the kids swam in the pool.

We ate lunch in a taverna on our way out of the drive leading to the hotel and were reintroduced to eggplant. Stephanie will tell you: this was one of our best meals in Greece. The fried eggplant and eggplant dip were the best we've ever had, and look at where we are! But from where we're seated, we're only a couple hours away from one of the favorite experiences of the whole trip: the Diros caves.

The Diros caves were the site of Neolithic and Paleolithic worship, and so it's fun to think of the cavemen -- though the museum was closed by the time we emerged from our swim on the beach; but the marvels of the caves were so direct. Who cares about history when surrounded by unending multicolored stalactites and stalagmites and eerie columns, spiny ceilings and unbroken teeth? A ferryman (Kharon?) quietly moved us around tight corners and through the caverns, the lick of water and flash of cameras the only sound.

When we emerged, this is what we saw. We swam in the backgrounded beach.

There was this thing, too.

That night, we ate simple pasta with strips of parmesan and olives and fresh melon. For dessert we ate sesame candy and a box of Turkish Delight. The girls' shorthand for the different flavors was Rose, Soap, and Pistachio. Stephanie thought there might be some raspberry in there too, so Sophie kept digging for the red ones, even though she really didn't like Rose. Rose! she'd say, handing it to someone who would eat it (me). Rose! she'd say when she tried another. Rose again! she'd say then. We were all trailing powdered sugar everywhere, and Stephanie eventually painted faces with it before we all played a game of wink-killer.

A good, good day.

The next morning I woke up not early enough to run down our hill and up another to reach the fortress we could vaguely see from our house. It was hot. The shade was gone. I've gotten fat over the year. But I ran when I could, walked when I couldn't, and reached the top in a sweaty hour and fantasized all the way down again about Stephanie worrying and driving to get me. It was beautiful up there. But rather than a sense of accomplishment or awe, I mostly thought about the second hill I would have to climb to get back to the house. Later I told Stephanie there was an easy road to the top by car and it was beautiful up there but I forbid her from making the trip. I was sore all the way after.

After the run I continued to sweat after an hour, after my shower, after we drove with the air conditioning full blast for an hour, after we sat in a restaurant in the breeze, and after we swam on the beach. 

We stopped in stunning Vathio, a tower town amidst steep mountain tops where new and old buildings were indistinguishable to me.

For the girls, the highlight of the day was the sandy beach in Marmari. After eating in the resort cafe overlooking the waters below, we spent hours in the sun, Stephanie and I eventually cowering under shirts and skirts and towels after a third application of sunscreen. But this was perhaps the girls' favorite time: the beach cove was calm and the water warm and shallow. There were no rocks of any shape on the bed of the sea. There was just sand and gentle waves and a beautiful setting, and the girls played and played and played. Maisie too, whom some of you know to be afraid of the surf, delighted in the waves and swam and caroused with her sisters in great joy, saying, this is the best beach in the world.

We had one last stop before turning in for the day -- the southern-most tip of continental Europe at the Cape of Tenaron. Here one can walk to the mouth of Hades (and if the cave is anything like the ones in Diros, one understands the mythmaking surrounding the Underworld) or to the small but evocative Sanctuary and Death Oracle of Poseidon, which we did.

On the way home, we saw this, far away from any fields, from any pastures, from any people who might be herding them: cattle grazing on a cliffside turnoff.

Instead of landing on Thrinacia, as the crew expected, Ulysses dropped anchor and summoned his two underchiefs, Eurylochus and Perimedes, to take counsel. He said, "You heard the warning of old Teiresias down in Tartarus. You heard him say that this island belongs to Hyperion, the Sun Titan, who uses it as a grazing land for his flocks. The warning was most dire: Whosoever of our crew harms these cattle in any way will bring swift doom upon himself, and will never see his home again."

Ah, the cattle of the sun, the golden kine: we took a picture and left them alone. We are in Barcs today to tell of it.

We had a wonderful stay in Oitilo after all, and one night left in Greece, which we would spend in Elis, or Olympia, site of one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.


We stopped in Pylos, thinking of Telemachus's visit to Nestor and eating an uneventful lunch before walking past otherworldly cactae by the Pylos castle.


But then we drove out of our way south to Methoni, a place our host in Oitilo said rivalled the ruins of Athen's acropolis.


In the end, I can say that this must be a very different experience with history and the magic of ancient worship not nearly so steeped -- having skipped Athens, where riots turned violent. But we were not expecting such a large ruin, and most of all, such beauty, from the fields of wildflowers within the fortress walls to the violent crashing of the waves around us to the stunning views from the Bourtzi. Every picture is dramatic.

We spent our last day with the gods in Olympia, walking amidst the ruins and understanding finally the stern earnestness and depth of worship people felt towards the unstable and jealous gods. In the archaeology museum, the faces of statues showed their steady power, the unflappable gaze of pupil-less eyes, while statues of worshippers told of despair, and terror.


We also went to a museum exploring the ancient Olympic games, where I was especially interested in the handled stones used during the long jump to extend the swing and length of the leap.


Below are the remains of the Temple of Zeus. One enormous column at its back remains.

We also walked around the Temple of Hera, or Heraion, where the Olympic torch is still currently lit using the rays of the sun.

Greece.

I leave you with this picture Amelia and I made on the camera while waiting for the others. Decide for yourself whether she is god or monster. Either way, she is fearsome, terrible, divine.