Greece – at its dramatic best
Hunting inspiration for her new novel, Victoria Hislop tours the Peloponnese and is spellbound by its natural beauty
WHEN people talk about holidaying in Greece, they often think of the islands: Mykonos, Paros, Santorini, Naxos. The Peloponnese, the southern peninsula of Greece, is in effect an island, too, but a vast one, with all the advantages of island life (beaches, harbours, seaside tavernas) in addition to some of the best archaeological and historical sites in the country (Olympia and Epidaurus, Monemvasia and Mistra).
The Peloponnese also has mountains and landscapes of olive groves and pines, and is separated from the rest of Greece by the Corinth Canal to the east and the Gulf of Corinthos in the north-west.
In my new book, Cartes Postales From Greece, my fictional character makes a journey around Greece and falls in love with the Peloponnese. In order to write about him, I had to go travelling myself, heading westwards from Athens to this wonderful southernmost part of mainland Greece.
I began in autumn, with plenty of energy to sightsee (this is the perfect season, with the sea staying warm enough to swim in until mid-November) and my travels soon shaped the route that my character Anthony would take and inspired the stories he would tell.
I went where tourists throng as well as to places where they don’t tend to hang around for long.
SOMETIMES I found myself where they don’t go at all, occasionally because of my terrible map-reading. Mistakes sometimes led to happy discoveries. For example, crossing mountains on a rough track because I had missed a turning led to the most spectacular views of pine forests and waterfalls I would otherwise have missed.
The towns enchanted me as much as the landscapes. I began in Nafplio, which was the first capital of the Greek State. It has a perfect harbour and three fortresses (including one on an island). I loved it for its faded grandeur and elegance, narrow streets without cars, and a feeling that this was where history was made.
Most magical of all was the generous central square, Plateia Syntagmatos, with its shiny marble paving stones, where people relax in cafes, or take their evening volta, or walkabout. It was the best space for people-watching.
As well as the buildings that border this square, Nafplio has many beautiful and interesting ones, including the cathedral of Agios Giorgos. Originally a Catholic church under the Venetians and then a mosque under the Turks, it is now a Greek Orthodox church. The life of this building tells the story of Greece, explaining the patchwork of architectural styles you often see in the Peloponnese as a result of different periods of occupation.
Kalamata was the next place I stopped at, though I passed dozens of small villages in between. This is a working town, a port, somewhere entirely without pretension or awareness of its own charm.
Much of the city is modern. Many of the buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in 1986, but dotted among their replacements are dozens of magnificent neo-classical mansions that survived the tremors. To see their exaggerated grandeur is worth a visit in itself.
In the older part of town furthest from the port (from which a vast tonnage of olives is exported annually), there is a more picturesque area with small streets that wind up towards a Frankish castle. On the way, I went into the Military Museum and was shown around by a young soldier. It was part of his military service to lead me through the last 200 years of Greek history,
a period that has seen only short times of real peace.
My favourite place in Kalamata was the railway museum. It is little more than a siding, where trains have come to a halt and never left. I found it intensely nostalgic to wander among the carriages and peer in at the oldfashioned wooden seating and driver’s compartments and imagine a different Greece, an early modern age that has already been swept away by a mixture of rapid development and crisis.
To go on a train that still functioned, I went up to Kalavryta, through the spectacular region of Arcadia (after which our idea of heaven on earth is named). The rolling hills and mountains are as verdant and fertile as any of the Latin poet Virgil’s descriptions and, any minute, you expect the halfman, half-goat figure of Pan to emerge with his pipes and to cast his spell.
BEYOND these magic mountains, Kalavryta is a very contrasting place to Kalamata. This is a town that vividly remembers a dark moment from its past, and if any visitor was not aware of the consequences of the German occupation of Greece, it would be impossible to be oblivious here.
On December 13, 1943, as retribution for resistance and an attack on German soldiers, the entire male population, about 500, were taken to a hillside and shot. Women and children were locked inside the school while the village was burned to the ground. They emerged to find the smoking ruins of their homes and the bodies of their husbands and sons.
The extraordinary thing about this attractively rebuilt town (a ski resort in winter) is the sense of peace. On the hillside, where a memorial has been built, the word ‘Eirini’ – peace – is spelled out in stones. Kalavryta is also known for something more positive. It is the starting point for Greece’s most spectacular rail journey.
I travelled like an excited child on the narrow-gauge track built in the 1890s to bring minerals from the mountains to the sea. The small carriages rattled their way through the Vouraikos gorge and eventually reached Diakofto, a village on the sea. Arrival brought a change in climate, and the warmth of the air and the sight of trees heavily laden with oranges was welcome after the mountain chill of Kalavryta.
From here I looked out across the Gulf of Corinth and decided to go west to Patra, the largest city in the Peloponnese. It may be dilapidated, but this is part of its charm. The central square is worth seeing for its immense dimensions, along with a delicate, neo-classical theatre, the Apollon.
The church of St Andrew, which inspired an episode in Cartes Postales, is extraordinary – more impressive than some Byzantine churches. Consecrated in 1974, it holds 5,000 people. The interior is extravagant, with every surface and interior of its dome gleaming with colour and gold leaf.
Full of stories, I left the Peloponnese and crossed to the rest of Greece over the suspension bridge at Rio.
I stayed in every style of accommodation, from the Amanzoe in Porto Heli, which offers the most luxurious accommodation in Greece, and the exceptional Costa Navarino resort on the west coast, to the humblest twostar room. All options are great. But even better is to be spontaneous, to go where your instinct takes you, and to discover the real freedom of travel.
On his journey, my protagonist sends postcards to the woman who has jilted him, but they land on another woman’s doormat. Enchanted by them, she is lured to the Peloponnese to see it for herself. I hope others will be, too.
Cartes Postales From Greece, by Victoria Hislop, is published on September 22 by Headline at £19.99.