Amazing Monemvasia and we got a boatproblem!
Monday morning we sailed from Koroni to Kardamyli on the next finger of Peleponnes. We anchored outside a small church on the south side of the town. This is really a nice town to visit, but very quiet at this time of the year.
Kardamyli
A lot of sculptures in a small park.
And as always, we found an old town…. Old town Kardamyli is a small collection of abandoned fortyfied tower-houses clustered around 18th century church of Agios Spyridon
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We had to pay to come inside some of the buildings. After we paid he said the were closing in 10 minutes!! But it is not big so we manage to look around.
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Some years ago the old town was like this:
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Many nice buildings in the city center and they have everything you need for a holiday.
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Here you can see Felizia in front of the small church. The other building was originally a customs office, but it looked like it was private now.
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It was a bit of a swell in that bay so we decided to sail further south to another bay, Kalogrias. We came late and left early next morning so we didn`t explore, except from Astor was snorkling to check out the anchor and there were also some sulfur coming up from the bottom of the sea he had to check out.
Cave of Diros
The next morning we sailed to Cave of Diros. We wanted to arrive early because we didn`t bought tickets in advanced. But as for all other places at this time of the year it is not much tourists and we only had to wait 10 minutes for the next boat.
The cave of Diros is one of the most beautiful caves in the world. The cave began to form hundreds of thousands of years ago. The stalactites and stalagmites that are now under water were formed when the sea surface was much lower than its current level. Stalactites have been found at a depth of 71 meters. The maximum depth of the Cave is outside the tourist route and reaches 80 meters.
We were 6 people in one boat. If you book at their website you can book every whole hour, but the boat left when there were people enough.
The tourist route is 1,500 meters in length, of which the first 1,200 are on the lake, and the tour lasts about 25 minutes. The cave was open for visitors from 1967.
A lot of boats so in the summerseason I think it is very busy here.
I have one wish for this trip for next time. They have to stop so we can take some photos. It was hopeless to take good photoes when the boat was moving all the time.
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We made a video from this trip. The trip takes 25 minutes so it is from almost the whole trip.
This was an amazing place and we could have had more time here. The ticket office is up in the road, almost where you can see the blue building. So you have to go up there, buy tickets, and then go down again to the building right in the middle of this photo (close to the sea). Maybe you can see this better when you arrives with a car.
Porto Kagio
When we visit the winery in Olympia, Amanta said we had to go to Porto Kagio, so we decided to try out this bay. Unfortunately a flotilla with charterboats came in at the same time and anchored right outside the area where the taverna is. So we decided to go further inside the bay where we stayed all alone.
A beautiful sunrise!
Before breakfast we took a little hike up the hill to Porto Kagio Castle, right behind the boat
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A nice walk in the morning sun. The village is abandoned so we didn`t see anyone around. They say that this is one of the most important castles in Peleponnes, together with Myrtas and Monemvasia.
But we could see that someone has a holiday house or are renting out. It looks like an amazing place with an awesome view!
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Quiet place to stay for a night. The charter flotilla left early in the morning.
The next day we sailed to Monemvasia. We arrived right after sunset but we were lucky to find one spot in the marina on the mainland. We stayed there for free.
Monemvasia
Next morning we woke up at sunrise and were ready to hike to Monemvasia.
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There is a bridge from the mainland to Monemvasia
Monemvasia is one of the most spectacular places I have been. The town was founded in sixth century, and thus one of the oldest continually-inhabited fortified towns in Europe,
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We didn`t not only wanted to walk around in the town, we wanted to visit the top of the hill, with amazing stairs. From the sea it is almost impossible to think its possible to walk up there.
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Do you see the guys hanging in the wall?? It shouldn`t be me!!
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The guys were working in the wall (it was not for fun)
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An amazing view when you are coming up
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We walked further up the hill
To Hagia Sophia Holy Orthodox Church. Unfortunately it was close (even it says it should be open from 8.)
I want to go back here earlier in the summer, because over 600 species of wild plants have been recorded, 300 of which have been recognised macroscopically and are not part of the fungi and mushroom category.
Our goal for today, the top of the hill!
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The view to the mainland, Felizia are moored in the marina.
Breakfast with a view!
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The stairs
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Can you see the stairs?? Drone photo
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Coming back to the town
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We had a stop at a taverna for something to drink, and found a place with a cat!
I don`t drink water coming in a glas (only from bottles) so I gave mine to the cat. The cat reminds me of the cat my family had at home when I grow up.
A small video from Monemvasia 🙂
Back to the mainland
When we arrived here it was full of boat, but almost everyone left in the morning
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Monemvasia, you can see the building at the top of the hill where we had our breakfast
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After this amazing day we sailed further north. Our plan was to sail over to the next finger on Peleponnes, but it was not much wind. It was very rolly and when Astor started the motor (because of no wind) we had a problem, it was debris in the dieselfilter, again. We have a plan to clean the fueltank, but haven`t done it yet. And with no wind and no motor it was even more rolly…. Astor had to go downstairs to fix the problem but that is not fun when it is rolly. But after a while he manage to fix it and we could go to the nearest bay, which was Plaka bay where we anchored close to this small church, saint Georges Church. We had lines ashore and were ready to go inside almost at the moment it started to rain. We woke up to a boat full of bees, wet bees, laying around at the boat. Astor got stung of two of them… So we hoisted the anchor and sailed away as soon as we could!
From this bay we sailed to Ermioni. The weather forcast was not good. A lot of rain and not much wind. We didn`t had that much rain (well, I was sitting inside the boat..) and the wind varied. But finally we reached Ermioni and could moore in the marina at the south side.
We were here in Ermioni back in 2015 so we new it was a nice park to run around, so we did before breakfast in the morning.
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When you find pita gyros for 3 EUR we don`t want to make dinner in the boat. This was our dinner for three days…
Ermioni, at the north side. We tried first here, but the meltemi was on its way so we decided to go to the south side.
This is on the south side. When we arrived here it was almost no boats, but in the evening it was full, also the day after. People escape from meltemi (strong wind from north)
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Beautiful view from the hill
Astor found a turtle
a small one
Theese bells are ringing every hour, and every half hour, and then some in between, also at night. Why do they have to do that?? I could be enough to ring between 7 and 23.
A cut kitten
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Did I tell you in my last post that this post would be shorter?? Just kidding… I have so much I want to show you from our sailing. Next week we will go to Poros and then further east to Kithnos.
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See you!
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