I've always had a fascination with ancient history, and visiting Greece has been a dream of mine since I picked up and read Herodotu's The Histories when I was 16 years old. After our original 2020 plan to visit Greece was squashed because of Covid, I managed to convince Teresa that a January trip to Greece was in order! So right on the New Year, we drove down to LAX and hopped on a flight to Athens. Now, since I can't do a vacation without going climbing, we planned a mix of site seeing to archaeological sites, and a bunch of sport climbing. Rather than going to the more famous Greek island of Kalymnos, we opted instead to go down to the Peloponnese and visit the village of Leonidio, an up and coming winter sport climbing destination.
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| The acropolis of Athens at sunset as viewed from the Pnyx |
We spent a couple of days in Athens taking in the sites. We mostly visited archeological sites, and it was a thrill to stand in those ancient ruins. On the first day we took in the ancient Greek agora, Hadrian's arch, the temple of Olympian Zeus and of Temple of Hephaestus. We then wandered the maze of tight streets in downtown Athens, petted the many local feral cats and enjoyed the food and the busy crowds of tourists.
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| Teresa admires the Temple of Hephaestus |
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| Looking down at the ancient Greek Agora |
The following day we hired a guide and did a 4 hour tour of the Acropolis. The guide was worth every penny. Since we were in Athens in the off season, no one else booked a tour, so we had the guide all to ourselves! She was a graduate student in ancient Hellenic history, and was a wealth of information.
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| The Parthenon in the Athens Acropolis |
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| Temple of Athena Polias in the Acropolis |
After our wonderful time in Athens, we rented a car and drove down past Corinth and onto the Peloponnese peninsula along the coast of the Argolic gulf to reach out home for the next week, the lovely traditional Greek village of Leonidio.
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| Leonidio |
The village has developed as major winter sport climbing destination, with thousands of sport climbs within a short drive of the village with routes up to 8 pitches tall. We rented a little house and spend a full week enjoying the climbing and visiting some other lesser known archeological sites found in the Peloponnese.
The rock is all limestone, and varied in quality and type. The easy climbing tended to be on grey/orange slabs with pockets, while once the grades moved into 5.11+/5.12+ there were more dramatic features like tufas. The bolting was very friendly, the climbs long (often 40 meter pitches) and I found the difficulty to be on par with sport climbing in California.
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| Approaching another climbing sector |
The locals have made climbing very accessible. There are signs pointing the way to the different crags (sectors) and the names of the climbs painted on the base, so you always knew what you were hopping on!
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| Easy to find the climbing sectors with signs pointing the way! |
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| Name of the climb painted on the base |
The crags were busy, but only on one day really crowded. The climbers were friendly, and it was a thrill to be surrounded by so many languages! It seemed to be mostly local Greek climbers and Germans with a scattering of Italians, French, UK. We only ran into other Americans a couple times the entire trip.
I was somewhat surprised that euro climbers are exactly the same as North American climbers. There were sprinter vans everywhere! I cannot imagine driving a huge van like that in the insanely narrow streets of European villages and cities. I was terrified driving in Leonidio with my little rental car!
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| Busy crag |
We climbed one of the multi-pitches above town one day, Mignonette (5c+, 6 pitches). It was the easiest way up the giant cliffs above town, but was fairly chossy and had a mountaineering feel to it. Still an enjoyable half-day adventure.I linked pitches and did it 5 pitches, taking us only about an hour climb it.
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| Mignonette, 5.9, 5 pitches (PC - https://olympusmountaineering.com) |
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| Teresa tops out the last pitch of Mignonette |
In addition to days spent sport climbing, we took a rest day and drove out to Sparta and visited the ruin of the Byzantine city/fortress of Mystras. This was another thrill for me, as I have long been a fan of the history of Byzantium. I find it's long decline and eventual fall tragic and I think most people have forgotten about the long standing Eastern Roman empire. It must have seemed like the world was ending when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks, ending 2000 years of "Roman" empire.
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| The ruins of Mystras |
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| Faded painted walls in a Byzantine cathedral |
Mystras was abandoned in the early 1800s, but a single convent of nuns still live there. They care for a colony of feral cats, who are the friendliest group of cats you will ever meet!
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| Friendly kitties! |
It was a wonderful climbing trip and vacation, I would definitely visit again!
