Kalamata and the Messinian Valley

Kalamata has a population of approximately 60,000 and a beautiful port divided into different sections for the commercial ships, the fishing boats, and the yachts. It is known in Greece for the best olive oil and olives. It is an excellent base for the independent traveller to explore the Messinian Valley and the rest of southern Peloponnese.

It has an airport that, for the last 10 years, serves several charter flights from northwestern Europe during the summer months. There is plenty of reasonably priced accommodations and numerous car rental agents, including all the typical brands, to secure your stay and the best means of transport.

Quick Tips:

The Messinian Valley is known for its fertile land, lush vegetation, and tranquil landscape. During springtime, the Messinian Gods adorn this blessed land with an incredible diversity and variety of plants, shrubs, and flowers, nevermind the vineyards, olive groves, and greenhouses with fruits and vegetables scattered all over.

Best Way To Get Around:

For the truly independent traveler, the best choice is to fly charter to Kalamata, stay in a hotel in town, rent a car, and start daily excursions to the Messinian Valley and southern Peloponnese.

The city has a reasonable bus service to and from the rest of Peloponnese and to Athens. The port of Kalamata has weekly links with the island of Crete and the island of Kythera. The airport has several daily flights to and from Athens, and additional flights to other parts of Greece are expected soon

The Akrogyali, located in the heart of Agios Andreas on the seafront is a dual business of a hotel and a seafront restaurant. For the peak months of July and August I was quoted a price of €65 per double room per night, and this is inclusive of breakfast. The quote was made in April 2006, with a possibility, of course, of a rise in due course. My main focus today will be the restaurant (taverna), which is a classical Greek postcard eatery, with the magical small harbour views, the picturesque fishing boats, and no nonsense proper Greek food at very reasonable prices. The restaurant uses home-grown olive oil, locally produced fruits and vegetables, local meat, and fish from the fishing fleet in front of the taverna.

The menu has a wide variety of Greek food and I strongly suggest you experiment with tastes and dishes perhaps unfamiliar to most northern Europeans. On the vegetarian front I would select the giant butter beans for €4.50, the "Briam," a Turkish origin dish of courgettes, aubergines, potatoes, and onion in a tasty red sauce; the "Imam," which is an oily aubergine dish; green beans; and for the slightly more adventurous, okras in red sauce. All these cost around €4.50. On the starters you may sample "Tzatziki," which is yogurt with cucumbers and garlic for €2.50, "tirokafteri," which is spicy hot spread cheese (also €2.50), "tyropitakia," which are mini cheese pies with phyllo pastry and for €4.50; try the village sausage. Add a "saganaki" with you main course , which is fried white cheese ( €3.50).

Approximately a 40-minute drive southeast of Kalamata (and 20 minutes north of Koroni, in the very southwestern tip of the Messinian peninsula) is the village of Agios Andreas, twinned with the village of Longa. Laid-back with friendly locals, it is ideal for a stopover for a day or two off the beaten path.

It has everything the independent traveller might wish for: plenty of rooms to rent, small hotels, and a camping site for tents and caravans on the beach. Local tavernas and psistaries (grill houses), pizza places, and cafeterias offer no-nonsense food at low prices. And, of course, the village has a long beach suitable for children, too.

August is to be avoided, as the local expats return back to the village in the hundreds, but the rest of the summer season is otherwise reasonably quiet. Locals who speak English will offer you the traditional Greek hospitality and be an enormous source of information for visiting places or beaches off the beaten track.

On the hill above Agios Andreas is the village of Longa, with even more traditional and untouched character. Unfortunately, there is no option for rented accommodation or restaurants there, but you can soak in the village atmosphere in the local kafenio (village coffee shop), observing the locals playing tavli (backgammon) or prefa (a Greek card game) or gossiping about politics.

This is another little gem on the southern coastal road located halfway between Kalamata and Agios Andreas (approximately 20-minute drive to either destination). Petalidi (derived from the word petalida, which is a flat type of edible oyster found on beach rocks) is a picturesque fishing village with red-roofed houses and a cosy feel.

Larger than Agios Andreas (mentioned earlier), it has also a better array of hotels and rooms to let than its southern competitor. The village has a square in the middle with several fish taverns around it, plus cafeterias and other restaurants.

The main road from Kalamata to Koroni goes around the square, and every evening (and morning), the gathering of children and their Greek mothers and grandparents is reminiscent of the large, noisy family from the film, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

The Greek Orthodox Easter is a unique phenomenon and experience for any tourist, as it combines cultural features reflecting a mix of history, religion, nationalism, tradition, and even dietary patterns related with Christian orthodoxy.

Christmas and Easter are the two times in the Christian calendar celebrated more than any other. For Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, and other denominations the most important from these two events is the Christmas celebration.

Not so, for the Greek Christian Orthodox who attach far more importance to the Greek Orthodox Easter. Few days before Easter, millions of Athenians and residents of other large cities get in their cars, ships, and planes, and head towards their place of origin in every corner of Greece. Families who never meet together for the rest of the year, gather on Easter Sunday around the Easter table, following a " spit roast " preparation of the Easter lamb.

The previous night Greek Churches anywhere are crowded by people who never attend a single Mass service for the rest of the year. This is not mere religion. It is a pattern of interesting cultural, historical and social behaviour that goes back millennia and relates with the very fabric that makes one Greek.

For the whole week before Easter, Greeks will refrain from eating beef, pork, lamb, goat and will switch to squid, octopus, taramasalata and other "nistisima," food that is approved by the Greek orthodox Church in a peculiar form of fast.

In every little village, everywhere in Greece, churches with minimal attendance for the rest of the year, will start serving crowds of Greeks, large numbers of whom are non practising Christians. Churches are adorned with two flags, the Greek and the yellow with the double headed Eagle, representing the symbol of the Old Byzantine Empire, long ago demolished by the Ottomans (some 600-hundred-plus years ago). But, as I said earlier, this is not mere religion, but a more complex celebration of a broader national identity as most Greeks behave like automatons in a paradoxically uniform way.

The large attendance of faithful gets a peak on Good Friday ,when the "Epitaphius" will be toured around the villages (representing a ritual of the carrying of the body of Jesus Christ) and a final massive peak on Saturday midnight, the time of Christ's resurrection .

At that final moment, midnight Saturday, the whole Greece is shaken by fireworks and firecrackers, of all sizes, shapes and load, often manufactured by amateurs in vast amounts, creating an almost surreal audiovisual impact. The majority of these are spent on midnight at the Church's yards, often only a meter or two away from the rest of the congregation.

As one would imagine such massive amounts of what is essentially explosive materials (handled usually by teenagers) result every year in thousands of injuries and at least few deaths all over Greece. The first three photographs below were taken at the small village of Longa in South western Peloponnese in the Messinian Valley .

The tiny church was packed inside and the remaining of the congregation was massed outside in the Church’s yard. More than 90% of the people seen on that photo were coming from Athens or other Greek cities, escaping for Easter celebrations in their ancestor village.

The last photo shows a family man removing the roasted lamb from the skewer and getting it ready for consumption for Easter Sunday's lunch. Greek Easter occurs usually in the month of April, coinciding with the full onset of the Greek spring, flowers, and plants blossoming everywhere, and making the Greek countryside a huge pallet of colours.

Historically, ancient Greeks, in pagan times, used to celebrate spring with a variety of religious events and if one studies very carefully the modern Greek Easter, he/she may be able to detect links that connect today’s Greek Orthodox Christianity with the worshipping of these ancient pre-Christian Greeks, making the Greek Orthodox Easter an event that is even more interesting to study.