I'm going to divert slightly from places we actually stopped at on our trip and talk about the route we took. Because this route really needs to be seen to be believed!
The road from Pylos to Sparta is an unusual one. The first bit was normal enough. Lots of hills and the road twisted a fair amount but generally ok. But once you get to Kalamata that all changes. After that point you are in the Taygetus Mountains. Look to the bottom left of the picture. That little squiggly thing is the road. The road has a ridiculous number of hairpin turns throughout the drive. And of course, there's only one way through. I didn't even get a picture of the most nerve-racking cliffs. You're about five feet from the edge at times and just a slight skid on the gravel and you'd be off the edge. The very large number of shrines on the side of the road doesn't help increase confidence either. There have been enough people killed on this pass to fill a decent sized town. I should also mention that these mountains were where the Spartans threw their defective children and elderly.
This is Kalamatas castle. I'm not sure who built it or why 'cause we just drove right past it. I do have to say I love the name of that town. It sounds like something terrible is going to happen at any minute.
So the first thing that you experience as you go up 82 is a series of paintings on the side of the road. These are an unusually nice attempt at making the road nicer. I'm not sure why they chose to put them up there. Perhaps the town is artistically inclined? At any rate we started passing through the Taygetus Range in the early evening. The sun was just beginning to set. Little did we know it would become a race to get to the end before dark.
Do you see that white spot on the cliff? Here's a closer look:
There you go. It's a sign painted onto the cliff face. In case you're wondering what that sign says it reads Ταυγετος Εθνικος Δρυμος which means Taygetus National Park. Yeah, that's right. Modern day Spartans were badass enough to climb down a sheer cliff face 800 feet off the ground just to paint a sign telling people that it's a national park. F*kin' A Sparta!
Alright, so it wasn't exactly done by Spartans. The Spartans are on the other side of the mountain range. But it's exactly this sort of total disregard for genuine danger for only minor rewards that we've come to associate with the Spartans.
The road from Pylos to Sparta is an unusual one. The first bit was normal enough. Lots of hills and the road twisted a fair amount but generally ok. But once you get to Kalamata that all changes. After that point you are in the Taygetus Mountains. Look to the bottom left of the picture. That little squiggly thing is the road. The road has a ridiculous number of hairpin turns throughout the drive. And of course, there's only one way through. I didn't even get a picture of the most nerve-racking cliffs. You're about five feet from the edge at times and just a slight skid on the gravel and you'd be off the edge. The very large number of shrines on the side of the road doesn't help increase confidence either. There have been enough people killed on this pass to fill a decent sized town. I should also mention that these mountains were where the Spartans threw their defective children and elderly.
This is Kalamatas castle. I'm not sure who built it or why 'cause we just drove right past it. I do have to say I love the name of that town. It sounds like something terrible is going to happen at any minute.
This is the best bit. This is indeed what it looks like. The road does indeed pass under that giant mass of stone.This was the pinnacle of this terrifying ride. The valley to the right is just another steep cliff. Fortunately this is fairly close to the Spartan side of the mountain so we only had ten minutes or so to go. Which was good because the sun was pretty much gone by this point.
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