The area around Kato Samiko

The beach at Kato Samiko

Three kilometres away, and it is the reason we live here. Where were all the hotels? The beach bars, the package tourism, the concrete? Just endless sand and pine forest.

The sand runs for kilometres, and even in August you can generally find a stretch of it to yourself. Behind it the pines begin, and go on. The same sand changes its name as it goes along the coast - Kato Samiko, Kaiafas, and a local name that perhaps five hundred people know.

The turtles are here in June and July. The Gulf of Kyparissia is one of the main nesting beaches in the Mediterranean for the loggerhead turtle, and they nest in those two months - you may see them swimming close to shore, looking for a safe, empty stretch of sand.

We take paddleboards to the beach, and it is possible to get surprisingly close to a turtle from one. Sometimes they are very shy. Other times not so much.

The acropolis of Ancient Samis

Walk up through the olives and you are inside the walls of a city founded at the end of the fifth century BC. It held the narrow coastal passage between Eleia, Triphylia and Messenia, which is why it was fought over; in 244 BC the Aitolian Polysperchon took it, and Pausanias found it in ruins four hundred years later.

What is left is fifteen hundred metres of wall, four small gates, towers standing five metres high, and stones so large and so precisely fitted that the site calls it a textbook example of pseudo-polygonal masonry. Inside there are the remains of many buildings, a public hall whose roof was held on columns, and large cisterns for water.

From the highest point you look north-west to Zakynthos, and on a clear day to Kefalonia. West is the bay, far below. Inland, the mountains.

Kaiafas lake and thermal springs

A lake behind the dunes, with cliffs rising straight out of the water on its eastern side and two caves at their foot. One has a spring of drinking water. The other has the spa built into it, and the water comes out of the rock at 31 degrees.

The water is moderately sulphur, and it smells of it. The local story is that the lake takes its name from Caiaphas, the priest who condemned Christ: sailing to Rome, his ship met a storm and ran aground, he bathed in the spring, and the curse he carried made the water stink from the odour of his soul. It has smelled of sulphur ever since. The spa is usually open from July to September, though that can change.

The caves are older than the story. These are the caves of the Anigrid Nymphs, known by that name since antiquity, and volcanic water flows out of the mountain to feed the lake - hot in one cave and cool in the other. The drinking-water cave is not for swimming. The bathing is next door.

The lake was formed by earthquakes, and is three kilometres long and about five hundred metres across, with an islet in the middle and the church of Saint Catherine on it. There are turtles in the water as well as on the beach, and the lake ones have learned that visitors bring food - they are very tame. In winter the migratory birds arrive. Between the lake and the sea runs the Strofylia forest - the pines that begin behind the beach.

Smerna, the highest peak of the Lapithas

Twelve kilometres from the house, at the top of the Lapithas, at the end of a very twisty mountain road. Just getting there is an adventure.

The chapel is built into a cave in a cliff face, at the top of the world - or that is how it feels. Put a little money in the collection box, light a candle and say a prayer. On 15 August the church keeps its saint day, and thousands of people come up the mountain for it. Every other day of the year you will very likely be alone up there.

The second reason to come is the peak itself: a steep, boulder-strewn path to the very top, and then the rickety spiral stairs to the top of the fire-watch tower, and a view in every direction. In summer there is a fireman on lookout, and he will be glad of the company. It is not for the faint of heart, and it is worth the effort.

No photograph does it justice. To the south, Kyparissia and the whole bay. To the north-east, the central mountains of the Peloponnese, with Erimanthos behind them.

Ancient Olympia

Twenty-two kilometres inland and half an hour by car is the sanctuary of Zeus: the birthplace of the Olympic Games, with the temple, the stadium, and a museum that is worth the journey on its own. It is the day out that everybody makes, and the one worth planning properly.

Two things no guidebook will tell you. Olympia sits in a basin surrounded by hills, and it is always a degree or two hotter there than it is here on the coast, so go early, and you beat both the heat and most of the crowds. And the site is big: give it a good three hours. The museum is air-conditioned and takes about an hour, so leave it until the end, when you are ready to sit down and cool off. It is genuinely impressive, and it would be a mistake to skip it because your feet hurt.

What to look for: the entrance the athletes came through into the stadium - the stadium itself is a flat field, and far less interesting than the way into it - the stone stand where the dignitaries watched, the carvings from the Roman fountain, and the Nike of Paionios in the museum, which is the most famous thing in it.

And this is where the Olympic flame is lit. Every two years, for the Summer Games and the Winter Games, it is kindled at Olympia and carried to the host city; the flame for the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina was lit here in November 2025. Half an hour from this house.

The temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae

The temple of Apollo Epicurius stands high in the mountains, entirely alone. It has been called the Parthenon of the Peloponnese, and it shares its architect with that building: Iktinos designed both.

Since the 1980s it has been under a huge white tent, while a restoration creeps along underneath. That is the thing no guidebook tells you, and it is the first thing you see. It is still a complete and impressive temple - more so, we think, than anything at Olympia - and the tent does rather take the majesty off it.

Inside, the columns are Doric, Ionic and Corinthian all at once, or so we are told. Goats outnumber people, and the spring they drink from is older than the temple.

The Neda gorge

The gorge is at the bottom of the hill below the temple of Apollo Epicurius, so the sensible way round is the temple first and a dip in the river afterwards. Neda is the only river in Greece with a female name, after the nymph it is named for.

The river cuts through a mountain in dramatic style: steep sides with pine trees perched in them, boulders the size of cars damming the water into a series of falls, streams dropping into the river from high above, and everything green and lush. In the end the river disappears into a tunnel, with a roar you can hear from the path.

The intrepid walk down the river bed, and are sometimes forced to swim. The less ambitious take the footpath above the gorge, which reaches the pools and the waterfalls without getting wet. You can take a gentle half-hour stroll, or spend a whole day mountaineering, or anything in between.

Ancient Messene

Ancient Messene - not to be confused with Mycenae, which is away up near Corinth. Hardly anyone knows it is there, which is part of the pleasure.

The setting is magnificent, with huge views across the Messenian plain. There are intact buildings all over the hillside, and theatre after theatre, built on a series of terraces.

It is an hour in the car, and well worth it. “We were there. There were many steps and columns. It was most tranquil.” - as they put it in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Mystras

Mystras is an abandoned Byzantine city, perched above the Laconian plain and looking down on Sparta - or Sparti, as it is called now. It is a World Heritage Site, and it was important enough that Byzantine emperors came here to be married.

Now it is a steep hillside covered in ruins.

Park at the top. There are two car parks, one at the top and one at the bottom. Park at the top, work your way down, and then send the fittest and youngest driver back up the hill to fetch the hire car. It really is that steep.

Zacharo and Krestena

The nearest towns for markets, supermarkets and everyday shopping. Pyrgos, the nearest city, is twenty-five kilometres.