Crossing Taygetos: Sparta to the sea

Pickup at Athens or Kalamata, then the drive south and east into the Evrotas valley with the Taygetos wall building on the right-hand side. Mystras village sits at the foot of the ruined Byzantine city, and the guesthouse is a five-minute walk from the lower gate. Welcome dinner at a taverna on the village square — the kid stew is the dish to order — and a kit-check briefing with the guide afterwards. Try to land before 17:00 if you can; the road from Athens is three hours and the last stretch through Sparta is slow at rush hour.

Morning inside the walls of Mystras — the Pantanassa with its frescoes, the Despot’s palace, the climb to the Frankish acropolis above. Best done before 10am, after which the coaches from Sparta arrive and the upper churches fill. From the upper gate the E4 leaves the ruins behind and climbs steadily through black pine and Calabrian pine onto the eastern flank of Taygetos, with the Evrotas valley opening below. Lunch is a guide-prepared picnic on a shaded ridge — fresh bread, feta, tomatoes, the local koroneiki oil. Anavryti is a tucked-away village of stone houses and one good guesthouse run by the same family for two generations. Fill water bottles at the village fountain by the church; the next day’s first reliable spring is three hours up the trail.

The longest climbing day of the week. From Anavryti the E4 contours and rises through silver fir — the Greek Abies cephalonica only grows on these slopes — and breaks above the treeline at around 1,700m onto open scree. The refuge sits at 1,550m on a saddle below the summit pyramid, a stone-and-timber building with bunk rooms, long tables and a wood stove. It is unisex, dormitory-style, and the bathroom is shared and basic; bring a sleeping liner and earplugs. Dinner is whatever the warden has cooked — usually a one-pot lentil stew with bread — eaten communally. Sunset on the terrace at 7:30pm in May is the moment of the day.

Pre-dawn start, head-torches, the path climbs straight from the refuge onto the ridge. The final hour to the summit is the technical section — scrambling along a narrow spine the locals call the immortal ridge, with both gulfs visible if the air is clear. On a clean morning the Messinian Gulf sits to the west, the Laconian to the south-east, and on the rare day the Cretan mountains float on the horizon. From the cairn at 2,407m the descent traces the ridge north before dropping west to the new refuge at Agios Dimitrios — built in the last few years and a different proposition to the old huts further down the range. Bunks, blankets, showers, a kitchen that actually works. The warden runs it tight: chickpea soup, bread, the local cheese if a shepherd has come up that week. Boots off at the door. The dormitory is unheated and the windows rattle in the wind off Profitis Ilias, even in June — pack a proper bag and earplugs.

Out of the refuge by 8, then the long drop into the Vyros Gorge — the foot-route from Sparta to the sea, walked since antiquity. The path follows the dry riverbed in places and climbs onto the eastern flank in others, past stalactite caves and the abandoned monastery of Sotiras. Limestone walls 600m high on either side, plane trees in the bed, the smell of fig and oregano on the way down. The kalderími sections — old paved mule-paths — were laid before the road existed. Exohori sits on the southern lip of the gorge above Kardamyli, and the guesthouse for the night looks out over the Messinian Gulf. The legs will know about it tomorrow; soak them in a hot bath if the room has one.

A short, sloping morning — the kalderími threads through olive groves, cypress and pine to Old Kardamyli, the fortified upper village with its stone tower-houses and the Mourtzinos compound. Down through the gate, across the dry riverbed, and onto the seafront in the lower village by lunchtime. The afternoon is free: pebble swim at Ritsa beach, coffee at the cafés on the harbour, or a nap. Farewell dinner at one of the tavernas above the water — the slow-cooked goat with hilopites and a bottle of Mantineia is the right order. The sea is warm enough to swim from May through October; April you’ll want to wade and not commit.

Breakfast on the terrace looking south down the Mani coast — yoghurt with thyme honey, eggs, the sourdough from the Kardamyli bakery. Transfer to Kalamata Airport (1 hour) or Athens (3.5 hours) depending on the flight. If your flight is late, the guide can drop you in Kalamata for a final lunch at the harbour rather than waiting at the airport.