Crossing Taygetos: Sparta to the sea

Our guide meets your flight at Athens Airport or Kalamata Airport. Flights landing before 17:00 work, and morning ones are best. From Kalamata the drive over the Taygetos range to Mystras takes about one and a half hours.

You reach Mystras in the afternoon. The welcome dinner is a briefing with the guide at a taverna nearby, covering the route, the refuge nights and a kit check, with the mountain you cross this week behind the town. Bring a sleeping bag rated to 10°C for the refuges on nights three and four.

Mystras comes first. The morning climbs through the Byzantine town, past its churches, the Despots’ palace and the noble houses, to the acropolis. From there the E4 leads through pine forest to Anavryti, with the Evrotas valley and Sparta below: 12 km in all, with 890 m of ascent and 335 m of descent. Lunch is a picnic on the trail. Dinner is at a family-run guesthouse, where the host talks about the village’s history and his work maintaining the E4. Wear boots with grip, because the old paving in Mystras is worn smooth.

First thing, bottles are filled at the village spring in Anavryti, at 920 m. The E4 then climbs through pine and fir to the refuge at 1,500 m on the Spartan side, below the summit. The day covers 13.9 km, with 1,137 m of ascent and 880 m of descent, and it is the long climb of the week. Lunch is a picnic in the forest. Dinner is at the refuge, with the keeper’s stories about the mountain. Bring a warm layer for the evening. Nights at 1,500 m are cooler than the valley.

Climbing from the refuge, the path passes mountain herbs, the endemic Taygetos mountain tea among them, then follows the ridge known as the immortal ridge to the summit plateau of Profitis Ilias at 2,407 m. The day covers 9.5 km, with 880 m up and 895 m down. The ridge has a short scrambling section, without exposure. A steep descent follows to the shepherd area at Agios Dimitrios, with a picnic lunch on the way, and a shepherd sometimes invites the group to taste his yoghurt or cheese. The Agios Dimitrios refuge on the Messinian side is brand new, with bunkrooms.

From Agios Dimitrios the route drops into the Viros Gorge for the longest day of the week: 17.2 km, with 1,010 m of descent and 82 m of ascent. This is one of the hardest days on the trip. The Spartans once used the gorge to reach the sea. Limestone cliffs with stalactites close in, then the gorge opens into wooded valleys, cobbled paths and olive groves below Exohori, on the southern lip of the gorge above Kardamyli. Lunch is a picnic in the gorge. The evening is in Exohori, where the hotel terrace looks over the gorge. Walking poles take weight off your knees on the long descent.

The guide leads the shortest walk of the week: 5.7 km with 480 m of descent, through olive, pine and cypress. On the way down you pass villages with Byzantine churches, towers, fountains and mills, and the walk finishes at the tower houses of old Kardamyli. Lunch is a picnic before town, and the afternoon is free for a swim at Kardamyli’s beach. The farewell dinner is at a taverna in Kardamyli. Pack swim kit in your daypack, because the walk ends near the water.

Breakfast looks over the sea, then the private transfer leaves Kardamyli for Athens Airport or Kalamata Airport. Kalamata is the nearer of the two, so it suits an earlier flight home. Athens has the wider choice of departures, with a longer drive. The transfer on day 7 is included in the price, as on day 1. Tell us your flight time when you book and we set the departure from it, so there is no waiting at the terminal.