After ending the last day at the harbour of Kótronas, we had parked there for the night. The next morning we decided to hike up to the monastery of Sotiras.
For our hikes I use the Rother guide of the Peloponnese, which I had bought in Austria and downloaded the GPS data into the Rother App, which is very helpful. Normally I buy the guide through the app, but not all guides are available as downloads. Following the instructions, we took the road through Kótronas and up into the mountains in the direction of the Sotiras Monastery.
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| Little chapel on the way |
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| View into the bay of Kótronas |
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| Reaching the abandoned monastery |
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| In we go! |
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| The chapel of the monastery dates from the 15th century. |
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| Colourful paintings inside the church |
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| From the ceiling, parts of the painting are crumbling down |
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| The rest of the monastery is more or less in ruins |
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| Cell of a monk, which has a special acoustic |
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| View into the bay |
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| Little arch into the kitchen |
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| Monastery kitchen |
For the way back, the route led us on an old path which connects a village in the mountains with the harbour. Just that nearly nobody uses this path any more, and it was intensely overgrown. We really had to fight our way through the bushes.
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| At first the path was quite good … |
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| … you could see that it was built properly |
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| Soon the path was overgrown … |
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| … which got worse and worse |
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| But we made it down to the harbour! |
The parking at the harbour was free, so we supported the local economy by shopping at the little supermarket and visiting the bar at the beach. We also went for a swim at the sandy beach before we finally left Kótronas, looking for water to fill our tank again.
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| Cordy at the spring |
We had found a spring where we had to use our pump again to get the water into the tank. We had put a canister under the spring and pumped the water from there, as there wasn’t much of a basin.
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| Fresh water again |
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| @ Areópoli |
From the East Coast we had crossed the Mani again and arrived at Areópoli where we went for lunch before we wandered through the little streets and did some shopping. Nearby was the beach of Neo Itilo, where our next hike will start.
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| Sunset @ the beach of Neo Itilo |
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| Parking for the night |
Today, 17. NOV..2021, I DID GO WITH MY ELECTRIC Mountainbike from Areopoli to this monastery. I discover Mani by bike.
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