Pelopponese
It was on to the large southern part of Greece, which I suppose is technically an island if you count the (narrow, shallow, economically inconsequential) 19th-century canal across the isthmus of Corinth. We drove south across the plateau that contains Mount Parnassus and past Delphi, along the southern coast of Central Greece, and crossed the bridge at Patras to reach the Peloponnese.
From there, we plunged south straight into the mountains, where we embedded ourselves in the wilds of Arcadia for a week by hiking the Menalon Trail.
We emerged into Sparti and Mystras, where we spent a couple of days visiting a Byzantine fortress and the ancient city of Sparta. This was a chance to see in person the natural defenses surrounding the fertile plain where Sparta was located, and to feel grateful that we hadn’t signed on to do the (high and steep) Mount Tageytus trek as well.
We finished with a weekend in Nafplio, a chance to visit Argos and Mycenae.
Our last day in mainland Greece, we drove through the Isthmus back to Athens by way of Epidauros, noting the sites of Theseus’s journey along the way. (We were avoiding Athens, but it turned out to be impossible to avoid it completely; the rental car had to go back to the airport.)
On the last evening of September, we boarded a Blue Star ferry in Piraeus. We disembarked in a new month and a new region.
