Great camper stops...take care!

Before we set out I had done quite a bit of research concerning places on the Peloponnese to wild camp. Part of justifying the extra cost of catching the ferry across the Adriatic to Greece was that the expense could be partly offset by reducing our average daily spend by using free Camperstops rather than ACSI sites.

In the absence of a Michelin Road Atlas covering Greece, we bought the Freytag and Berndt large scale fold-out map of the Peloponesse. It's very good, apart from the paper it's printed on. If you go on Amazon to buy it, it would not surprise me if 'the frequently bought with' includes - a super-size roll of Sellotape. Over the summer I meticulously transcribed onto the map information from the Camperstops book, Peejay's useful web-site, Greek Stopovers, and other sundry places gleaned from blogs and web boards. In the case of the most likely looking wild camping stops, I also had a quick 'reccy' on street view to look at access roads. However, preparation is no substitute for experience, so here's some pictures and a brief review of the free places we have stayed in so far, concluding with a cautionary tale at the end!

1. Katakolo N. 37.649479 E. 21.318993

An easy drive from here to Olympia. The parkijng is at the pier. The marina has toilets, showers and a water tap. The notice says, 'For Marina Users Only' but no-one seems to mind.

There's a no camping sign at the gate, no-one seems to take a blind bit of notice of that either. The port itself is interesting. It was the primary port for the export of currants, until Patras took over. It would probably have fallen out of use entirely, but Cruise ships dock here so their inmates, sorry, customers, can go on excursions to Olympia. A good place for a free stopover.

2. Pilos N. 36.915625 E. 21. 695022

Parking on the pier, or alternatively in the coach park by the marina. There are public toilets next to the marina, open, but a bit grim. Pilos is a pleasant small town with a lovely tree shaded square next to the harbour. Lots of cafe's and tavernas and a pleasant walk up to a ruined castle.

3. Agios Nikolaos N. 36.823014 E. 22.283727

Parking on level, but un-metaled car/bus park just beyond the fishing harbour. No facilities. The village is a very attractive small port with high quality tavernas. Although the village is only 1 km. from the main road running down the west coast of the Mani, the village streets are narrow. I had to reverse into a gateway to let a coach through. The place is on the coach tour circuit, so this kind of situation must happen all the time. 

4. Neo Itlio, N. 36.69246 E. 22.38969

About 30km south of the previous camperstop. On a promenade above a nice beach in a spectacular bay. We used this as a lunch stop, but it would be a nice peaceful place to spend the night. The road down to Neo Itlio is steep, but not too narrow.

5. Kamares, N. 36. 68203  E. 22.52090

An idyllic, secluded beach side stop on the east coast of the Mani about 18 kilometres south of Githio. It is about 5km off the Kalamata to Githio main road down narrow winding lanes. Not too tricky if you drive with care..

6. Skoutari, N.36.65921  E. 22.49962

This is situtated about four kilometres south of the previous stop. If anything, the setting is even more spectacular than the last one. Access however, is a nightmare for anything larger than a campervan. The roads to it are steep, gravelly, narrow, and approaching from the north made even more hazardous by un-pruned olive tree branches spreading into the already narrow road. The parking area itself is a small patch of sloping concrete near the beach.While  extricating myself from the dead end I clipped a boulder and cracked a rear light housing. I would not recommend this place at all.

There are some great places to wild camp here, it's just some of them are down tracks more suitable for a moped,and it's really tricky to know how you  tell in advance if the road is going to be OK. Most of the camperstops in ports or marinas seem straightforward. It's always tempting to search out that remote beach where you can sleep under the stars, but you take a risk, one overhanging olive branch can do a lot of damage. After my brush with the boulder, maybe I'll be a bit more risk averse in future.

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Mani Pleasures:

26th -28th October

Tomorrow we head to Gythion Bay campsite after two days wild camping on the Mani peninsula. Of course the Mani is not undiscovered nor untouched by mass tourism, but it is remote and at this time of year, off the main roads, it is empty, wild and bewitchingly beautiful. We have been so fortunate with the weather, lovely autumn days, sunny with temperatures in the mid 20 - perfect. So, coming up, a few blog posts about the highlights starting with...

1. Unforgettable Roads

The terrain is very mountainous and so the roads slither their way through, tangled like half unravelled string. By Greek standards the bigger roads are reasonably wide and better surfaced than others we have been on. However, to reach camperstops in the villages or by a beach you have to take minor roads. These can be narrow with crumbling edges and deep ditches or culverts at the side. Overhanging branches or balconies in narrow streets are a hazard too. You will meet coaches and trucks on single track roads and, as the tourist, you will be expected to reverse. This can be hair-raising, and without a co-driver happy to get out and direct, nigh on impossible.

Thankfully in mid-October the roads were at times utterly empty, in July and August I suspect driving around the Mani is very stressful. If you do have the confidence to bring your gleaming hulk of metal here then you will rediscover the excitement of driving, and in the rare moments when you can glance away from the road you will glimpse scenery that has to be some of the most beautiful in the world. Gill kept snapping away as we drove along. In the best tradition of the TV chef, here are some views from the cab we took earlier.

Empty roads through the mountains

Hairpin bends to make Muriel's eyes water

OK  until you meet the Stavros the bus driver hurtling towards you...

Mountains and olive covered headlands - The Mani coastal scenery

2. Historic Villages

The hill villages, situated high above the spectacular coast line with their fortified towered houses and tiny Byzantine chapels. are what the Mani is famous for. They are severe looking places in a bare limestone landscape. The area, like Corsica, resisted the efforts of larger powers to govern it. Well into the nineteenth century it was home to warring clans who maintained vendettas over generations. It was a barbaric place ruled 'mafia-style' by feudal obligation. Before Greek independence the area made its money by selling Venetian slaves to the Turks and Turkish slaves to the Venetians. When human cargo was in short supply, they simply nipped around to the neighbours, carried off their womenfolk and sold them. Of course they've given up now on people trafficking and taken-up selling craft items to tourist who give up their money readily without even requiring a pistol to the head.

Less famous are the small fishing villages by the coast, they not quite so stony faced looking, and are as lovely as anywhere you might imagine on the Mediterranean that has not as yet been utterly changed by tourism, imagine a fishing village where men actually fish, their wives and daughters operate the small open air fish market and there is not one swanky looking yacht to be seen. Amazing!

Agios Nikolaos - utterly gorgeous.

The fishing fleet

Illy coffee - yay!

Watching the boats come in...

The time from boat to market...

...about 45 seconds..

3. Epic Landscapes

There is not really one typical Mani landscape, but differing ones, due to the height of the mountains and the relationship between geology and the moderating influence of the sea. The lower slopes mix olive groves with clusters of tall cypresses, combined with the dark blue sea it is like a crowd free Amalfi coast. A few hundred metres further up it becomes a country of deep ravines and arid limestone hills. Between these are small plateaux with the Mani tower villages overlooking their scrap of earth from a nearby crag. Above, white mountains hover, even on an otherwise cloudless day wreathed in scraps of cumulus.

In Crete, the North and South coasts, though only an hour or so drive apart have a different climate: in the north, green with patches of eucalyptus forests, to the south, barren garrigue. Something similar seems to happen on the Mani; Whereas the west facing coast is rocky, reminiscent in parts of northern Corsica, the east coast is gentler, with more pasture and a few small river valleys; it's a more forgiving looking landscape altogether. This is the Mani's charm, it is epic in scale, but subtly varied, it thrills, without being overpowering. Breathtaking is overused to the point of cliche so far as scenery is concerned, but I challenge you to drive along this peninsula without the occasional involuntary gasp.

The roads winds through limestone garrigue with cloud topped mountains above.

At times it is arid, reminiscent of  Cap Corse

Other times the shingly coves, whitewashed builsings and sage green hills ate pure tourist brochure Greece

The east coast has a gentler, wooded aspect.

4. Elemental Swimming

The stormy weather last week put paid to my penchant for jumping into the sea at every opportunity. Perhaps that's it, I thought, the end of summer warmth,  tri suit weather from now on. We parked for the night on the quayside at Agios Nikolaos. Towards evening we took a stroll around he village. As we passed a rocky outcrop near the harbour beacon, a man in swimming trunks holding a snorkel clambered up some old metal steps from a crystal clear rocky pool.

"Good swim,, is it warm?" Gill enquired.
"Very varm, gut, gut, 24 degrees!" Herr Snorkel enthused.
"I will jump in tomorrow." I boasted.
"Me also," Herr Snorkel informed me, "Maybe we jump in both!" (Hearty Germanic chuckle).

The clear water looked very inviting, though it's fair to say I was very sceptical concerning the alleged temperature, especially given the thundery weather on over the past week.

Next morning I did jump in, even though Herr Snorkel was nowhere to be seen. In the event he was right and I was mistaken, the sea was remarkably warm.

Beyond the harbour, up a lane of  bougainvillea... 

steps lead down to a rocky pool

Why did I leave my snorkel at home?

 

Since then, I have become a fish. Yesterday lunchtime we stopped for a couple of hours by the side of an empty beach at Neo Itlo. I had lunch, then I jumped into the sea.

Lunch stop at Neo Itlion

A relaxing afternoon on the beach

followed by a swim

Later on we stopped for the night at an even more remote beach near Kamares. Since the clocks changed last weekend it's getting dark by 6pm. around the time we eat our evening meal. As I washed up, I saw out of the kitchen window a big fat full moon rising over the bay. I grabbed my camera and video and spent a few minutes failing to capture the magic. As the sky darkened to a grey gauze, one by one the stars appeared. The wind dropped and the sea became silky smooth like a lake. Staring at the glassy water had the same fascination as happening upon an untrodden field of snow. I knew I had to make my mark, so I stripped-off and jumped in - a big ripple in the small bay, a drop in the ocean, a random collection of conscious atoms among the stars. I suppose if I was religiously minded I would say that swimming through the dark water towards the full moon was a spiritual moment, but I am sceptical about the allegedly numinous. Nevertheless, it was a powerful, memorable experience, but a very humbling, human one, full moon, big sea, endless starry space, and me.

A rare experience - swimming through a ribbon of light towards the full moon.

The change of time has also made me stir irritatingly early. It was a few minutes before 6.30pm when the dawn light woke me up. I knew I was never going to get back to sleep, so I grabbed my camera and walked along the empty shoreline. Though the sky was a deep blue by now, sunrise was at least half an hour hence. In the east Mars shone brightly, there was a pale mist half hiding the far hills across the Gulf of Lakonikos; close by, a wispy fog hung above the steel-grey bay. The sea was so warm that the chill dawn air condensed above it. 

first light

dawn mist across the bay

Of course you know what I did, I went for a swim, because once we get back to staying in campsites, even those next to a beach, you don't have the freedom to simply roll out of bed and jump into the sea. To my mind, you have to grab moments of freedom when you can. Most times the world conspires to slot you into a convenient, pre-determined mould; it's difficult to grasp the authentic, or un-mediated, difficult even to define it, but you know when you have experienced it, you feel strengthened, elated and liberated.

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e

The thing about travel...

Monday, 26th October

..is that not only is each day different, and disconnected from yesterday and tomorrow, but that moments can be haphazard too. So, having only moments previously posted an ostensibly well observed piece about my tendency for introspection and the reserved nature of the British, we immediately fell into a lively conversation with the English couple from the van next door. They were much younger than us and travelling long term without an end date in mind. We discovered we had been to many of the places they had been to, stayed at the same camp-sites and shared similar grim experiences around Brindisi and suffered sleepless nights thanks to Grimaldi ferries - lovely people, see, I can be sociable... I need to keep repeating this!

Next, after all the moaning about the idiosyncratic nature of Greek campsite facilities, I discovered what I took to be a really Heath Robinson contraption for draining the grey water tank was in fact rather clever. By attaching a hefty foot long end section of guttering to an extending length of flexible hose pipe, it meant you can place the drain point exactly under the van outlet instead of having to reverse the vehicle over a fixed drain on a concrete apron. Ingenious! The campsite owner came out of reception to see us off, all very affable and attentive.

It was one of those days when the gods of motorhoming were on our side. After shopping in the supermarket in Koroni we arrived at what was going to be our camper stop by lunchtime. We decided to carry on beyond Kalamata towards the villages of the Mani. This meant driving through the middle of Kalamata, a small city. The traffic was fine and we happened upon a handy Lidl and stocked up on 'non Greek' essentials. Soon we were climbing steeply towards the mountains of the Mani peninsula, white like the Lefkas Ori in Crete, and almost as high, at 8000 feet.

Koroni's very own out of town shopping emporium

Blimey! traffic, Kalamata's drivers were well behaved, by Italian standards.

The older you get, generally the less surprising the world becomes, and though you may have pleasing experiences, those rare moments that 'knock your socks off' get far and few between. The drive through the Mani is seriously sock removing. The road winds upwards through a series of dizzying hairpin bends. As you ascend, you pass quickly through a series of different landscapes. Steeply terraced olive groves punctuated by finger-thin dark green cypresses give way to spectacular limestone ravines. On the whole the road is good, though worryingly narrow at times as you squeeze past oncoming tipper trucks and chunky cement mixers. Next you cross an upland plateaux, the white peaks high above, as you pass through the tower-villages of the ancient Mani bandit country. A brow of a hill approaches with nothing but blue sky above, then down you go, the sea flashes into view, silver towards the sun in the west, deep blue to the south. As you wind along the shore you pass the small resort of Stoupa, compared to much of what we have seen so far, the place looks upmarket and stylish.

Evening light, Agion Nikolaos

Our Camperstop was a few kilometres south of here in a small fishing village called Agios Nikolaos. It's lovely, though getting to the harbour was a bit fraught, meeting two tour buses in the narrows streets required some nifty reversing and brilliant arm waving on the part of Gill to protect Maisy from bruising her bum, but we got here, and it's great. We watched the sunset as the fishing boats returned. The quayside cafés filled with people gathering for a drink to watch the sun go down, including the local priest plugged into his iPod. I'm sure a taste for Ibiza Trance is not in itself heretical... The thing about travel is you can never quite tell when the reality of it is going to exceed your dreams. It hardly ever does, but today it did. Tonight there is even a full moon over the mountains, how good is that?

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