Saturday 14th May 2011 – Arna, Greece

We had been given two excellent local guides by a café in Sparta and that inspired us to investigate more of the local sights. We wanted to travel up into the Taygetos mountains and one of the brochures mentioned Arna, which sounded rather nice. First we headed into Sparta, visited the Temple of Artemis Orthia (the site is not open but it is visible from outside the fence) and drove down the east side of the Evrotas River expecting to cross it at one of two crossings further south. One certainly did not exist and if the other did exist, it was down a very narrow lane, too narrow for the motorhome. Greek maps strike again!
We went back to Sparta and drove down the main road along the west side of Evrotas. After stopping at an excellent, large AB Supermarket where all of the staff spoke English, we arrived at the Tholos Tomb of Vafio (or Vapheio). This was where two beautiful 15th century BC gold cups were found during an excavation in 1888 and we saw them in our visit to the Athens museum. There wasn't much left of the tholos tomb surrounded on all sides by vast olive groves.
Next stop was the Hellenistic bridge at Xirokambi - built in 100 BC it was on the ancient road from Sparta to its port of Kardamyli on the other side of the Taygetos mountain range. It is complete and is still being used by pedestrians.
Here our climb started and we were soon seeing magnificent views. There are no campsites in the area so we were looking for a suitable wild camping site. We saw a couple of possibilities on the way but just before Arna we came across the ideal site with easy access from the road. The long, wide and flat area of stony ground had magnificent views to the right over the Taygetos mountains, to the left over the Evrotas valley and plain to the Parnon mountains, and ahead to the sea, the Gulf of Messenia. At 900 metres with those views we really felt we were on top of the world. We took a walk around the perimeter and then cooked dinner. As darkness fell we watched the lights of villages appear in every direction.
For anyone wishing to wild camp in this area, the site is approx. 2km outside Arna on the Vasiliki road, GPS coordinates 36.88182 N, 022.43152 E.
Photos: 15th century BC gold cup from Vafio showing the capture of bulls; The Hellenistic Bridge at Xirokambi; Wild camping near Arna.