You've got to pick an olive or two! (Kalamata (Greece))

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Kalamata (Greece)
Date:	10/08/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Town itself is a bit drab

Disadvantages: The coast heading south is gorgeous

Back in 2004, I had a bit of time to kill in Greece and began looking for work. One of the jobs available at the time was olive picking and whilst the work is normally taken up by neighbouring Albanians and paid extremely lowly, I figured that it was worth checking it out as it was a good chance to get to visit the Peloponnese region. To get there, I had to go through Kalamata and ended up spending the best part of a day there. Kalamata of course, is probably most famous for its olives!

I got there on the night train from Athens, it's only around 250km but such is the state of Greek railways that it takes forever to get anywhere. The journey is noisy, cramped, slow and hot and I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone, road transport has to be a better option. Kalamata has a population of around 61,000 but it's train station is really provincial, it's a tiny place and has quite an old fashioned feel to it.

Kalamata lacks the history that the majority of Greek towns have because it's a relatively new town and it's nearby Messini that is the ancient neighbour. So unless you pay a visit to Messini, there's nothing in the way of archaelogical relics that you might be expecting to find. Kalamata is fairly busy and is an important port city, the smell of fish is all around and it's the various restaurants grilling fish or the harbour itself that's the culprit not the elders!

The fact is that despite its size once you've pottered around the harbour, there's actually very little to do in Kalamata, it's worth hopping on a bus and heading south along the coast, where you can find numerous small fishing villages and beaches.

The beaches just slightly south of Kalamata are actually some of the best ones around but its worth getting at least as far south as Stoupa, Aghios Nikolaos, Aghios Dimitrios and perhaps if you are the energetic type the caves at Trachila. The coastline down here is beautiful and the bus journey with the mountains on one side and the sea on the other is second to none.

Summary: Not much to see in the city itself but surroundings are great