September 23: Elati–Vytina–Nymfasia
5.6km; 110m (-310m) ascent; followed by 8.9km; 500m (-140m) ascent. So… 14.5km; 610m (-450m) ascent.
The girl who checked us in the previous afternoon and who oversaw our doordash dinner was still the only front-of-house employee in residence. There must have been someone in the kitchen, though, because they’d set up the entire Greek hotel breakfast buffet. I suppose the other two guests made this exercise worthwhile.
After breakfast, we took another taxi ride back to Elati, the beginning of Section 4 of the Menalon Trail, which goes from Elati to Vytina.
This was a relatively short hike. We reversed the end of yesterday’s hike, walking past a goat yard and down into the creek bottom.
The trail was easy enough, though as I’ve said before, they’re never “easy.” The day got hot, as they always do, and some sections were quite sunny.
We strolled into the town of Vytina just before noon. Noon is years too early for lunch in Greece. Instead, we sat at a café and watched the local commerce.
Vytina appears to have a thriving tourist industry based almost entirely on the sale of local honey and homemade pasta, with some hand-carved shepherds’ crooks and bags of mountain tea thrown in for good measure. Tour buses pass through a seemingly impassible 90-degree turn throughout the late morning, bringing crowds of retirees to enjoy lunch in the fresh Arcadian air and buy pasta that they surely don’t need.
The day’s hike was also meant to include Section 5, Vytina—Nymfasia. You can hike a moderately long trail, OR take a very short walk on a dirt road. Our plan was to walk that hour down the dirt road (skipping the trail, on the thinking that we had the idea) and have lunch in the town of Nymfasia, which is down the hill from the Nymfasia Resort.
Haha, silly us! Nymfasia is a ghost town, barely populated during the week, especially in the off-season. We had essentially walked an hour from the nearest restaurants and shops, and were still a good 20 minutes downhill of the Nymfasia Resort.
Back at the Nymfasia Resort around 1:45, we discovered that the front desk was now manned by a young man. He was happy to call a cab to take us back to Vytina, which was the only realistic possibility for lunch. He assured us that we could find a return ride at the taxi stand in the Vytina plateia.
Alas. We finished lunch at the start of the afternoon dead zone. There were no taxis to be had. After listening to the church bells chime two quarter hours, and browsed the honey-an-pasta shops (again), we called the hotel. The young man agreed to come collect us, which ended up adding 25 euros to our bill. Ah well… It’s the off season!
The young man explained that his grandmother lives in Nymfasia, and he stays with her when he’s working at the resort. The town does have a couple of tavernas in its center, but they’re only open on weekends outside of the tourist season.
That evening, I solved the mystery of the crocuses! The yellow ones are Sternbegia lutea, the winter daffodil/yellow autumn crocus. This information is thanks to botanists from the British Isles, who have long explored the flora of Greece and written about it in English. Evidently, the Mediterranean “spring” begins in autumn, when the rains begin after the dry summer. The first plants to flower are the bulbs. The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland was actually sponsoring a guided tour of the Pelopnnese a few weeks after we visited the area.
