A stop in Nemea on the road to Kalamata
Nemea is a wine region just after you pass over the Corinth Canal and enter the Peloponnese, the vast mountainous region of southern Greece, home to the ancient Spartans, Mycenaeans, Argives, the Olympic Games and pretty much everything else you read about in ancient Greek literature.
Now it’s also apparently home to two Albanian women who work in the vineyards of Nemea. They were hitchhiking on the road after picking bundles of wild herbs in the hills. I pulled over to give them a lift and we had a nice conversation despite my terrible Greek and complete ignorance of Albanian. They were delightful and most appreciative since I saved them a long walk home in the blazing sun.
They gave me two bottles of wine for my trouble, thank you very much.
After dropping off the Albanians I headed to a wine tasting at Ktima Palivou, a well-known Nemea producer. As it happened there was a group at the winery on a tour from a cruise ship docked in Athens. They were all from Florida, Missisippi, Texas and various other southern states, and worked for an insurance company whose name escapes me. I sat with a couple from Mississippi — she seemed to like the wines. He was more of a Bud Lite and Bourbon guy (shocker).
We tasted two whites, a rose and two reds. I bought a case with an assortment of each. My new friends had a bus driver to take them back to their ship but I had to drive 140km to my next destination. Maybe I should have skipped the rose.
Before getting back on the highway (the A7 South), I stopped in Ancient Nemea. Fun Fact - back in the day the Nemeans hosted athletic games where naked runners coated themselves in oil and competed in various track-and-field events to win crowns of laurel. Who knew? I thought that only happened in ancient Olympia.
In addition to the “stadium” where all this took place there’s a temple to Zeus which has been in various stages of restoration since the 1950s or 60s. More columns, plinths and capitals, standing amid vines, groves of cypress and of course the ubiquitous olive trees. The landscape feels a lot like Tuscany, with rolling hills and cultivated fields everywhere. Where else can you taste wine, commune with nature, walk among the Gods and pick up Albanian hitchhikers all in one afternoon?
Life does not suck.
