Trip report on Peloponnese

Beth, it's a VERY helpful report ... thanks for taking the time, and providing opinions and cost details. I urge everyone who's planning a lot of Peloponnese driving to check it out!

Thanks, Beth! This trip report is a must-read before anyone even thinks about visiting the Peloponnese.

About the very end of the report, I’ve also noticed a bunch of times that Greeks remember the people they meet so well, even years after. Sometimes it feels like you're just coming back to visit family. :-)

Wonderful report and brought back memories of one of my several trips to the Peloponnese.

Thanks Janet, Jo-Lui, and Tommy.

I must say I still am amazed that the shop keeper in Nafplio remembered my son. And yes, it did feel like a family reunion. I think he told her when he said good bye eight years ago that he would come back. And obviously their brief encounters were really important to both of them. My son was a 21 year old college student at the time who had never been abroad before that Greece trip.

And Tommy--we went through Petalidi in route to Koroni. It looked like a lovely town and a much better location than exploring than from Koroni. I am glad we decided against using Koroni as a base, although we could have used another half day there (I would have skipped Nestor's Palace).

While I didn't stay in Koroni I did wander around the village for a couple of hours and really liked it's Greek character and nice waterfront.

I did consider staying there but Petalidi worked better for me logistically and really like it's nice Greek vibe with a good number of options for services.

I was disappointed and underwhelmed visiting Nestor's Palace. Nice location but really not much to see other than a super clean floor, low stone walls indicating rooms/buildings but did have a nice bathtub!

I did like wandering outside the site with it's various Myceanean tombs and ancient olive trees.

I’m surprised and disappointed to read that Kardamili was so touristy in May! We are a family of 4 hoping to return to the peleponnese in June 20027 after a fab visit to Napflio and Gytheio in 2022 and we’re thinking of exploring Kardamili / Stoupa. What we liked about our visit last time was that while there were certainly tourists, it felt a little bit more diverse- tourists from all over vs mostly Brits or Germans or Americans.

Would you say the level of tourism you found in Kardamili similar to that of Nafplio? We enjoyed Nafplio level and thought that level was reasonable.

Kardamyli only has one main street with some smaller ones off of it. I thought everything there catered to tourists. That doesn't mean that I regretted visiting it. I did like staying above the town in the Vardia hotel and would highly recommend it. You can walk to the old town and to the main street.

We stayed also in Gytheo which I thought was less touristy. We visited Nafplio only for an afternoon this trip. It is bigger than Kardamyli so it is not as quite in your face touristy, although in the old town, it was definitely catering to tourist.

I would consider spending some of your time in Acropolis rather than Stoupa which is very close to Kardamyli and is even more touristed. Acropolis has a bigger area you can walk around which I really enjoyed.

I think some of it is expectations. I didn't expect what I found in Kardamyli. I would still go there though if I was planning my trip again and even stay in the same place.

Hope this helps!