Greece – Peloponnese – Gythio (En)

Gythio is a town on the eastern shore of the Mani Peninsula, and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece. With a population of about 5,000 people, Gythio is fairly lively all year round and is a great choice if you want to be located in a small town close to some of the Peloponnese’s best beaches.

We stayed at camping Meltemi (36.731701, 22.5532 lat, long) on the beach, with a swimming pool, tavern, a small market, new and very good facilities and hedged pitches so you are in the shade. Excellent camping, the only thing is that the wifi only really works in reception or in the tavern. For only 23 euros with the Acsi card.

The beach is right on the camping door, with amazing views and bars and taverns along. We and Asha enjoyed the beach a lot. We met Kevin and Vera, he English and she Italian, a couple who has been 23 years living in their campervan and travelling. The most beautiful campervan we have seen, made of old wood.

We went to see the town of Gythio on our motorbike. Like the rest of the Mani peninsula, Gythion has a very rich past. In line with an ancient legend, Gythio was founded by Hercules and Apollo and it seems that it was lavishly decorated with a theatre, several temples and other buildings made out of marble. Nowadays, apart from walking around, eating and drinking, you can visit the Cultural Centre of Gythio, which was a maiden school back in the late 19th century and has recently been transformed into an ethnographical museum.

We walked through the beautiful town on its promenade with is full of bars, taverns and gift shops on the beach shore, and saw the Cultural Centre which is in a square with the mountain in the background and a statue in its front. The colourful houses are located in the mountain.

Gythio has many nice local tavernas with typical Greek food, and it was hard to choose where to go. In the end, we decided to have lunch in a very cute tavern where we saw the locals eating and we shared a platter of prawns, for our surprise were fried, and a platter of sardines, both really good but we liked more the sardines in Athens. All with a jag of rose for 21 euros!

And from here we went to Stoupa, another town in the Mani Peninsula, famous for its magnificent mountainous landscape and its turquoise waters, which you can see in the next post!