Kalamata old town and the castle hill

Most visitors see Kalamata's two-kilometre seafront and stop there, but the old town is a kilometre inland and completely different: a compact grid of stone houses, iron balconies and small squares around the cathedral of the Ypapanti, a nineteenth-century church built over a much older chapel and still the centre of the city's biggest festival.

The photogenic run is the few streets between the cathedral and the castle: shaded, narrow, lined with old doorways, and quiet enough to work without managing traffic. Above them the Frankish castle of the Villehardouins sits on a low hill — a free, open ruin with a walled terrace that gives the gulf on one side and the wall of Taygetos on the other, which is the frame that explains the city in one image.

Afternoon is the time. The stone warms, the lanes fill with reflected light rather than direct sun, and the mountains behind turn blue as the light goes. In July and August the old town is genuinely hot until six. Parking is easier here than on the seafront, and the walk from the cathedral to the castle terrace takes about ten minutes uphill.