Monemvasia
Who knew that this place even existed, even after reading Rick Steve’s book he doesn’t make it that clear how hidden away and cool it is. We had been riding in the rain most of the day after leaving Kalamata, a small town on the coast of Greece, wow you can’t believe how many olive trees are here, millions, you can smell them as your riding along. There are several factories where smaller farmers bring their olives for oil production and we found out that they get picked by machine, crushed, pip and all and then put in a centrifugal machine to force the oil out, as you can imagine its virgin here and cheap.
Getting a bit sick of the weather I must admit! When the sun shines, even if it’s still cold, riding the bike is still a great feeling but with the rain and the wind it’s not quite as much fun. We rode out to the Mani Peninsula, a place where Rick Steve’s says don’t bother unless you want to see Monemvasia cause there is nothing else to see out there but a rocky barren rugged land that is exposed to the weather, well that is true. Anyway we decided to go, on the way there we both said, so even if there is nothing there we have to stay the night because the weather was bad and it was getting dark too.
From the modern village of Yefyra, on the mainland, there is no sign of Monemvasia at all, only the steep cliffs can be seen. You have to cross the narrow causeway and round the south-east corner of the rock before you can see the walls of the city and the entrance archways with their heavy ancient doors that lead to the town of Monemvasia. It stands at the foot of a steep rock which protrudes into the sea and is linked to the land only by a narrow strip of land. This was a superb natural fortress in its day, which is why, in the sixth century AD, the Lacedaemonians chose it as their refuge from the constant raids of the Arabs and Slavs.
As we approached the entrance we had no idea what would be inside, I thought it was a heritage site of an old walled castle but what it actually is is a town, with houses and shops and restaurants with stones buildings and pathways, a small church and just a really cute place complete with hotels, it was so quaint, you should have seen the smiles on both our faces. With mouths still hung open and in awe of this find a hotel receptionist spotted us and asked if we were looking for a room, we thought for sure it would be out of our price range but she showed us to a lovely room for only $50euro a night, still smiling of course we took it. After all, there was some shopping to be done and I could do some here!
We got settled in our room, showered and warmed up and then onto the bar for a drink, free wifi zone too, a real wood burning fireplace, great music playing (oh by the way the music in europe is all played with english singing artists) there was a real storm brewing outside so we were both happy to have found such a neat place to ride the weather out.
We did a bit of shopping, got some info on the town and surrounding area, had a great dinner at one of the restaurant and back to the bar and then off to bed. What a storm brewed last night, there was thunder and lightning all night long, neither of us got much sleep even in a castle with the thick 12" walls we could still here the storm outside but it was pretty cool to be perched out into the sea knowing that we were dry and cozy in our castle bedroom..lots of fun.
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