Lake Doxa, the high mountain lake of the Feneos plateau at 900 metres under Mount Helmos — the monastery of Saint George, fir-and-poplar shores, tavernas on the water, and one of the great inland drives in the Peloponnese.
Lake Doxa — the lake of Feneos — sits at 900 metres in a wide upland basin between the Corinthia and Achaia mountains, ringed by Greek-fir forest and small farming villages. It is one of the most beautiful and least visited corners of inland Peloponnese.
Lake Doxa is a reservoir, but a deeply natural-feeling one — a long, narrow lake above the Feneos plain, a basin that has held water on and off since antiquity (the ancients tried to drain it through a famous network of katavothres, sinkholes; it has flooded and drained repeatedly across two millennia). The dam that made Lake Doxa was completed in the late 1990s. The dramatic feature is the Monastery of Saint George of Feneos, on the slope above the lake’s north shore at 945 metres — rebuilt in 1754 after a fire — a frescoed church, a working community, and a rose spoon sweet made by the monks. A few simple tavernas, on the shore and up in Archaia Feneos, serve grilled meat and the local beans and lentils — they fill up on Sundays with families from Corinth and Patras. Walking trails run up into the Helmos and Killini mountains; the chapel of Agios Fanourios on its little peninsula is the most photogenic stop. Best as a long lunch on a half-day drive — combine with the Helmos cave or the Cogwheel Railway from Diakopto in Achaia. Stay overnight in the stone guesthouses of Archaia Feneos or Goura; otherwise sleep in Loutraki or Nafplio.
A Sunday lakeside lunch.
From Loutraki about an hour and three-quarters: motorway to Kiato, then the mountain road past Lake Stymphalia and up on to the Feneos plateau.
Above the north shore at 945 m, rebuilt in 1754. Thirty minutes.
The shore road and the causeway to the little church of Agios Fanourios on the peninsula. An hour.
Two hours — the Koutouki tis Limnis on the shore, or Kapris up in Archaia Feneos for gigantes beans and spit-roast pork.
An hour on the path above the lake, or the rest of the shore loop.
An hour and three-quarters to Loutraki.
Within an hour and a half.
Five minutes south-east — the village (812 m) under the acropolis of ancient Pheneos; beans, lentils and tavernas.
About an hour and a quarter north-west (in Achaia) — Cogwheel Railway, ski resort.
About an hour south. Detail on the Vytina page.
An hour and a half north-east. Detail on the Sikyon page.
Tell us a little about the trip you want — pace, who's coming, how you'd like to spend your mornings. We'll build the days.
