Areopoli and Divos Caves

On our way to our adventures on the Mani peninsular, we had a quick coffee stop at Glytheio - a very cute coastal village. Our first goal was the Diros Caves, an important natural site in Greece The Paleolithic and Neolithic artifacts found here, mean that the caves were one of the earliest inhabited places in Greece. The known part of the caves cover an area of around 33000 square meters of which only 5000 square meters have been explored. Some say that the caves go even further, maybe as far as Mount Tagetos and Sparta! We did a combined boat/walking trip through the caves. Len nearly lost several centimetres off his height as various low level cave ceilings.
After this extraordinary experience we travelled to Areopoli. It was in Areopoli that 12,000 Maniots gathered on 17 March 1821, raising their white revolutionary flag, which bore the words “Victory or Death”, and become the first region in the country to declare the Greek War of Independence. In 2025 it is a picture postcard village and home to the best taverna we have visited on this trip!Read more