The Peloponnese: what to do instead of lazing on a Greek island

You could go to Greece and catch the rays on a gorgeous chalk-walled beach on one of the country’s 6 000 islands (only 227 are inhabited). No one would blame you. Many would be envious.

You could do that. Or you could pack a pair of walking shoes and head for the Peloponnese, that peninsula on the westernmost side of the country that is connected to the rest of Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth.

It’s an entirely different type of holiday, one full of fascination and adventure. If you are into watching the locals gossip, argue and play in a town square on a summer’s evening, or hunting for – and at last finding – a traditional restaurant because the most obvious ones are the ones the locals use and are probably not even Greek, then this is the holiday for you.

The triumph you feel when you dig your fork into a bowl of wine-dark octopus stifado in that traditional restaurant is exquisite. So is the stifado. If you are lucky, of course. If you are not, it’s all part of the adventure.

There is joy too in the hunt. Exploring windy old streets that totter away from the platia, the town square, where mothers let their children roar about on plastic motorbikes while they swap the latest news and grandfathers squabble over tavli (a backgammon-style board game) and ouzo.

End the meal with coffee and that quintessentially Greek dessert – Greek yoghurt scattered with walnuts and drizzled with honey – and discuss the highlights of the day’s exploration.

Greece is one of those places where myth, history and legend are so intertwined it is difficult to separate the skeins of the story. And who would want to? This knotty problem is an integral part of the fun.

The Peloponnese is where the formidable Spartan nation had its home, at Sparti in the south. That’s not far from Kalamata, famous for the olives, but where you can laze on gorgeous beaches too.

Sparti is well worth a morning’s exploration. It’s gorgeous, with the Taygetos mountains behind, scraggly as a nine-year-old’s set of teeth, snow-topped in winter and where the Spartans notoriously abandoned criminals and “unfit” newborns into a chasm known as Ceadas or Caeadas.

It is in the Peloponnese region that, for 12 centuries, people from all over ancient Greece competed for athletic glory at Olympia. The ancient Olympic site is chock-full of all the myth, history and legend that you could want. Run the length of the stadium, visit what’s left of the Temple of Hera, built around 590BCE, and the ruins of a sumptuous villa built for the infamous Roman emperor Nero around 1CE. (Some say he had bad press.)

Have lunch in a hilltop town, or picnic on the banks of the Lousios River after hiking Lousios Gorge, craning your neck to see tiny monasteries clasping desperately to the sheer white rock face.