Kalavryta to Stemnitsa

Sept 30

 
We woke to a grey day with the threat of rain. It was to be mostly a travel day, so it didn't matter. We filled up at the hotel breakfast buffet of eggs, yoghurt, cheeses, fruit, before heading off for a relatively short drive with lots of stops along the way. 

First stop was at the top of town, where there was a memorial to the Kalavritan Holocaust of December 13, 1943. I’d read about this monument, and had mistakenly, and understandably, thought that it was about Jews being massacred, and I couldn’t figure out how there would have been so many here in the mountains of the Peloponnese. Once at the site, I realized that the term holocaust was meant to refer to the near extermination of the entire male population of the town by the Nazis. Greece was occupied by the Nazis from 1941 to 1944, and Kalvryta was a centre for Greek Resistance guerrilla fighters. The German army attempted to surround the town, and the guerrilla response to this aggression was to execute the German soldiers they had captured some months early. In turn, the commander of the German division ordered the massacre of every male in the town over the age of 12 -- 438 were shot -- and the town set afire. German leaders have since expressed shame and sorrow for the tragedy.

Memorial to the slain boys and men of Kalavryta

Twenty-five minutes down the road, we made a stop at the Kastria Caves, otherwise known as Cave of the Lakes. We paid our €4.50 seniors rate and had a Greek-only tour through magnificent stalactite-stalagmite caverns. We didn't need any narration.

One of a series of lakes in the caves. Note the high water mark on the wall.

The second lake

Curtains of calcite

From the caves, we drove another ten minutes for a planned lunch at a trout farm near Planitero. This is a stop for many tour buses, it seems, with a massive outdoor dining area. But we were the only ones there, joined by a few others only when we’d finished eating. The grilled trout was fantastic. It came with more Greek salad than we could eat, along with soggy fries we didn’t much bother with.

G

Greek salads are always served like this here, with big slabs of local feta. What you don't see here is that the dish is massive, more than we could eat.

Trout caught in the pools right beside the eating area, probably today.

After lunch it was an hour and a half to our destination, Stemnitsa. The road was winding but not too winding, narrow but not too narrow, and there was very little traffic. Close to Stemnitsa, we passed through Dimitsana, which we had considered staying at instead of Stemnitsa. I thought about stopping there, but it’s a town that clings to the sides of a steep valley, and the roads down into it looked so challenging to negotiate, we decided to pass right through. I can certainly see its charm, but driving those streets…nope.

Stemnitsa is not much easier, but it’s much smaller. We wound our way to the Gartagani Guest House, high above the village, and were shown to a fairly big, simple room that reminds me somewhat of a monastery. This will be home for two nights while we explore the region’s trails. 

Our guesthouse

And the view from our guesthouse

We are now deep into what feels like the real Greece, not the island Greece or the Santorini white-washed Greece, but the work-a-day Greece in which most Greeks live. These villages are pleasant and have accommodations and restaurants for visitors, but their raison-d’etre is not tourism. It’s refreshing, because our neighbourhood in Athens, and then the whole town Delphi, exist solely for tourists, and one might as well be in Disneyland. We have met some other travellers these past couple of days, but mostly the people we see are Greek. 

We walked down to the town centre for dinner, that being much more practical than driving. We ate at the one open taverna in town, a cozy place bustling with other travellers. We were happy for the heater on this chilly evening. Our chicken dinner was nicely grilled, though heavily salted. We managed to get  home before dark, climbing the half kilometre up the stairs to our cozy room.