1x7 - The Peloponnese

July 30, 2008

Architect and historian Francesco da Mosto embarks on a journey across the Mediterranean sea. The Black Swan docks near Athens - on route for Istanbul - so Francesco heads off alone on motorbike into the wild west of Greece, the Peloponnese. Here the people in the south have a reputation for, at best, unfriendliness, and it isn't long before Francesco runs into trouble with the locals. But there is plenty to marvel at. Mystra, the ruined Byzantine town, once known as 'the Florence of the East', the ancient theatre at Epidaurus where a stage-whisper can be heard throughout an auditorium seating thousands, a tiny cave-like church that boasts incredible frescoes, and Vathia - the abandoned town of towers where neighbour fought against neighbour to get the upper hand. Meanwhile, in the aptly named region of Arkadia, Francesco finds a sweet surprise - a field of beehives where the bees make the best honey in Greece and the biggest worry bead shop in Greece. At Methoni, he visits a great Venetian fortress at the sea's edge, the site of a massacre of his ancestors at the hands of the Ottoman empire.