Destination of the Week: Navarino Coast
Pylos is a compact but surprisingly stylish town for rural Messinía; guarded by a pair of medieval castles, it occupies a superb position on one of the finest natural harbours in Greece, the almost landlocked Navarino Bay. Given the town's associations with the Battle of Navarino, and, more anciently, with Homer's "sandy Pýlos", the domain of "wise King Nestor" whose palace has been identified 16km to the north, it makes a good base for exploring this part of the Peloponnese, particularly if equipped with a car. Relying on public transport, you'll find that long afternoon gaps in services make complex day-trips impractical.
The main pleasures of Pýlos are exploring the hillside alleys, waterside streets and fortress. Getting your bearings is easy as it's not a large town, and the main square facing the port is very much the heart of the town.
The principal sight in town is the Néo Kástro. The huge "new castle" was built by the Turks in 1572, and you can walk around much of the 1500m of arcaded battlements. For most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it served as a prison and its inner courtyard was divided into a warren of narrow yards separated by high walls, a design completely at odds with most Greek prisons, which were fairly open on the inside.
Yialova, 6km north of Pýlos, has tamarisk trees shading its sandy beach, and makes a delightful base for walkers, naturalists or beach-lovers.
Pýlos's northern castle and ancient acropolis, Kástro Navarínou (Paleó Kástro), stands on a hill ridge almost touching the island of Sfaktiría, at the end of the bay 5km west of Yiálova. It has substantial walls and identifiable courtyards and cisterns within fortifications, which are a mix of Frankish and Venetian, set upon ancient foundations. The panoramic outlook over one of the best beaches in the Peloponnese – a gorgeous crescent of fine sand curling around the spectacular Bay of Voïdhokiliá – is tremendous, but the interior is a jungle of shrubs and other vegetation that makes progress through it difficult. It's a ten- to twelve-kilometre trip from Pýlos, for which you'll need some transport.
The lagoon behind the beach is an important bird conservation area, and vehicles are not allowed on the earth road around its eastern rim. Near the end of the Golden Beach asphalt, a signed nature trail has been laid out. Turtles still breed at Voïdhokiliá (and at the beaches of Romanoú and Máti, further north), but a tiny population – the only one in mainland Europe – of slow-moving chameleons amongst the dune shrubs is endangered by illegal drivers, camper vans and reptile collectors.
A path from the southern Voïdhokiliá dunes ascends to the Spílio toú Nestóros (Nestor's Cave), and then to the castle. This impressive bat cave with a hole in the roof is fancifully identified as the grotto in which, according to the Odyssey, Nestor and Neleus kept their cows, and in which Hermes hid Apollo's cattle.