The Castle (Methoni)

 

17th Aug 2020 (Methoni)

The day before our 30th Wedding anniversary... woke to cloud dappled skies, a nice change from the close to unbearable heat and unrelenting sunshine we’ve had for the last month or so. ....having written that, I must point out that I am fully aware that there are very many worse problems we could be suffering!

We’re anchored in 3m of crystal clear water into a good sandy bottom in the bay of Methoni. 

I head over to shore early to pick up some decent wifi, and to chat to Char about the lodger situation (no luck just yet, trying to fill the space left by Matt the Canadian lumberjack). Town is populated by a few sweepers cleaning the areas outside their restaurants, and groups of rotund nonnas heading for their morning float around - you can’t exactly call it swimming, as it’s just standing in the water and sharing the previous days gossip.

Return to the boat, and after a brekkie of baked beans with some exceptionally good bread (from a baker in Pilos) we make our way back over to the jetty with the plan to visit the sea facing castle that dominates the town on one side.

Unusually, there is a ticket booth and a charge to enter: €3, so shouldn’t complain.

We enter through the high arched gate houses, the walls are home to clumps of hardy caper bushes, that dot the tall sandstone sides.

We wander along well worn wide paths, the non-path areas being overgrown with brambles, wild onions gone to seed and fennel - and lots of other hardies that I can’t identify. There’s also one or two fig trees that are laden with ripe dark green/purple fruit, which we gratefully scrump to offset the entrance fee. The furthest outpost of the castle is an octagonal Turkish keep that stands sentinel among the rocks where the land meets the sea.

The whole castle is an imposing site and scale, and as with so many of these places, it has a rich flip flop history of ownership between the Venitians, Turks and Greeks, and anyone who cared to pass by with a few canons.  

Back to the boat by lunchtime, from where I write this.