Grecotel Charity Hike

I feel so very lucky to have been one of 8 lucky agents chosen to take on this year‘s Grecotel Hotel and resorts charity hike.

We were hosted by Kostas Sinis, Sales Director at Grecotel and the Grecotel Filoxenia team in Kalamat, who really went above and beyond to ensure that when we were not hiking, we were well looked after. We all had wonderful rooms, we ate in the buffet, a local restaurant in the old town and had a celebration meal in a private room with some of the hotel team to end the trip. The food at each meal was fantastic. There is a great emphasis on local produce, which I really loved. You could even purchase local olive oil, soap made from local honey,y as well as other local delicacies from a small shop within the hotel.

It was an early flight out from Manchester, er, another hiker and Iker decided to share a room at the Tribe hotel at Manchester airport the night before, and I can definitely recommend it. I got the train down,n and it was less than 5 minutes to walk from the platform to the hotel. The rooms are comfortable and nice and quiet too.

0415, and we were meeting the other agents/hikers on our flight,t ready to check in for our 0635 flight to Kalamata. Terminal 2 at Manchester is hosting a lot of passengers right now with Terminal 1 undergoing its refurbishment, but security was swift, and once through, I was glad of some insider knowledge that I will share with you. Once you get through the duty free, the escalator in front of you goes up to a food court but this can be pretty busy as it sort of draws you that way Skip the escalator and turn right, pass a few shops and a juice bar and you will come to Great Northern market which was much quieter and had a selection of places to order food/ drinks and we were served very quickly.

A smooth 3.5 hour flight with Jet 2 and we touched down in Kalamata, this is certainly no modern airport but I loved that about it, just our flight landing meant the 2 passport controllers could easily deal with us, we got to the luggage carousel and our luggage was already there, off we went to find our transfer and within an hour of landing we were being handed a welcome drink and being checked in! I think this makes it ideal for a short break like we had,d flying out Sunday and home Wednesday.

Our first part of the trek was Monday morning, the restaurant kindly opened 30 minutes earlier for us to get a good feed before our walking guides collected us. Climbup Greece were a great company, and if you want to take a walk, climb or even go horse riding whilst in Kalamat, I can highly recommend and pass on their details. We had a 45-minute drive to the start of our gorge walk. I have to be honest, I was expecting this to be a fairly easy 10km walk, but I was wrong. Once we had descended into Ridomo gorge, helmets had to be worn for safety, and there was strenuous bouldering/scrambling to be done before getting into the narrowest and most spectacular part,t before a steep path back out and a short walk back to the start. I absolutely loved this day and would go as far as doing it all again.n, I really felt like I pushed myself, and we laughed too.

Tuesday, it was an even earlier start for the 2-hour drive to Spartan, then a further 20-30 minutes to the start of our hike of Mount Taygetus. The hotel kindly provided us with breakfast boxes to eat en route as well as our packed lunches. The start of the walk was through the forest, and we saw huge trees that had been split by lightning. We stopped for the holy water and then took a break at the refuge partway up. From here it got steep, and we were soon into the mist. The summit was unreachable safely due to snow, even towards the end of May, so we got as far as it was safe to do so, had a quick team photo and quickly began our descent to get to some warmer temperatures. The drive back to the hotel was quieter with everyone being rather tired, ed but once back at the hotel, it was quick showers, and we rallied again for a trip into town for a lovely Greek meal. We were all so tired, though, that we just ate and returned to the Grecotel Filoxenia, without exploring the town.

Wednesday, we were flying home,e but I felt I wanted to see Kalamata or at least a little of it and how far it is from the hotel, for research purposes, of course, always thinking of my lovely client. So, another early start and off I went for a pre-breakfast run. 1 mile from the hotel along the beach front, and you begin to come to bars, cafes and restaurants. 2 miles and you reach the harbour. I didn't have time to do any more, other than a quick stop at the Supermarket next door to the hotel to see what gluten-free goodies I could find. A quick shower before a fabulous last breakfast, and finished packing before our short transfer back to the airport.

The size of Kalamata airport caused a little more chaos on the return, the queue for security curling round to the door you enter the building by meant some people started queuing there before going to check in, but if you are nice and early or know about this, then it doesn't cause an issue. Check in, queue for security and then passport control and then into the holding area where there is just one small duty-free shop and toilets, but really, do you need much more?