Peloponnese: best sites

I think you should buy a copy of ROUGH GUIDE -- or if you don't want to invest ANY money in research for an expensive trip, go to the library and borrow a copy & photocopy relevant pages. Another tip -- Go to Trip Advisor Greece Forum and Thorn Tree Forum (Greece) and on each site use the "Search" tool for "Peloponnese trip" and you should turn up NUMEROUS itineraries. Once u have set up whre you want to go, go to the Michelin driving page... and it will tell how long for each leg of your journey.

What you ask here is too much; do some homework first and we can advise you on the details.

Ellis

I have a Greek map of the peloponnese which divides the sites into three categories: interesting, very interesting, and much too interesting!

They rate Mycenae and Epidavrus as 'much too interesting' and I'd also put them in my top category. Nafplio, which is a beautiful town with its own impressive fort, is well worth staying for at least a night and would make a good base for these and is about 3 hours drive from Athens. The road from Athens actually takes you past Mycenae so you could do that on the way down.

From Nafplio you can drive via Tripolis to Sparta in between two and three hours. Sparta itself isn't particularly interesting but Mystra is really spectacular and, after some recent work done on signs etc, very informative.

From Sparta I would probably go on down to Monemvasia, a really remarkable island fortress which still has a mediaeval feel.

The alternative is to cut across to Olympia but I've never been there so will leave others to comment.

Cheers
Alan

From Nafplio

It absolutely depends on your interest level in ancient stuff :). I would allow several hours at any given site, but I'm a classicist so I'm pretty biased. I will confirm what Alan said--Napflio is gorgeous and worth a few hours. Are you able to hike? There is a great hike to a fortress in Napflio that will take an hour or so in total but has gorgeous views, plus you would want some time to look around the port. Mystra is also a great place to explore and is very different from the ancient sites--again, at least a few hours.

I know there are companies out of Athens that run day trips that cover Epidaurus, Mycenae, and Corinth in one day but this seems ridiculously fast to me. I would allow maybe a day for Epidaurus/Mycenae and another half day for Corinth (more if you want to climb to the top of the acropolis there--see comments on Napflio :)).

Check out Matt Barrett's website at www.greektravel.com for some good info.

I agree with Napflio--and also really loved Kalavryta. As far as how much time to allow--it depends on what you like to do. I can tell you that I spent three nights in Napflio and three in Kalavryta and am looking forward to return in the future. At the same time, even if I only had one day in each, I would go back to each place.

We spent as week in the Peloponnese in 2007 basing ourselves in Nafpilio and Gythio and drove all over the penninsula.
If you send me a private email I'll send you our write up on our week there.