A town of rustic, lyrically romantic beauty, Monemvasia offers a glorious natural setting - perched on a colossal rock island, which rears spectacularly from the sea. A unique castle city, the island is linked to the mainland by a single causeway. It is hard to imagine a better – and more impenetrable - setting for a fortress town than this, and the rock is laced with tight cobbled streets, exposed stone masonry and pretty Byzantine churches. Known as the Gibraltar of Greece, you would be forgiven for assuming that the limestone monolith was unoccupied as you approach from the seas. Look a little closer, however, and you’ll begin to pick out the ancient walls and terracotta roofs of the quaint town clinging to its steep, dramatic slopes - and the walls of the fortress crowning it. A natural stronghold of overwhelming beauty .
May 16th
Anchored off Monemvasia where we went on the History and Traditions tour. First stop was the ancient city of Monemvasia. We had a really good guide, Helen, and the place was enchanting. We had a guided walking tour through the narrow lanes of the castle city, then later returned ourselves to explore further.
Along the way, there are ruins of houses and Byzantine churches. One church that survived intact is the Church of Christ Elkomenos. Built in the 13th century and renovated during a period of Venetian occupation, it serves as the city's cathedral and displays four surviving Byzantine icons. Another church has been turned into an interesting book shop
At the end of the Silversea tour, instead of returning to the ship, we walked back to Monemvasia and spent 2 more hours there, reaching the far city walls and stopping at a cafe for a smoothie and some orange cake.
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We then went to the Liotrivi olive farm, 12 km away, where we learnt all about their olive production and had an excellent lunch.
Originally, the Liotrivi farm was the country home of the Greek poet Ritsos. It was sold in 1930 and the new owners converted it to an olive farm. The main house now serves as a museum where you can see the original machinery which used horses to help press the olives until the mid-60’s when they began using more automated machines. But the process of harvesting the olives is the same as it has been for centuries. Olives are harvested in November and December. The trees are shaken to allow the olives to fall to the ground. Small hand held rakes are used to pull the olives together. Nets are placed under the olive trees to catch the olives when they fall. The olives are put through a machine that separates the olives from the stems, next they are crushed which allows the oil to be released and separated from water which the olives also contain . The oil is then bottled.
We began our tour with a presentation on making fresh sourdough bread which we were later able to enjoy with a meal of fresh olives, tomatoes and cucumbers, cheese, and of course some local wine.
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Back aboard we showered and then read on the back deck before Recap and Briefing: Roselea gave a long , painful talk on fish and we were not over impressed by the new guest lecturer. After this we had 2 new butlers in 10 minutes!, Randy now being assigned to us through to Dublin. We ate outside on , the Terrazza, all by ourselves. Afterwards David got trapped talking to Colleen and Ian, and there was no Bossa Nova!!
