Methoni

Methoni castle is located in the small town of Methoni, we travelled here from Finikounda about 10km away on bicycles. We took the road up from finikounda which was like doing one of the mountain stages of the Tour de France, luckily a nice Greek cafe full of older local men served strong Greek coffee to wake us up for the journey ahead. The rest of the way was easy going with views all around and not a car or person to be seen, very tranquil you do not realise how much noise we put up with in everyday life.
On the decent down to Methoni we got our first glimpse of the castle and it's Bourtzi sticking out from the mainland like a finger, surrounded on 3 sides by the sea, it looked impressive.
A car park is located outside the 13th century fortress which is free to park, with the entrance to the castle also free this was a cheap attraction to visit.
The only part of the castle not surrounded by water has a moat which is now dry and an arched bridge takes you across the moat to the entrance. Inside is fairly flat with a cobbled pathway between the high walls this leads to the large open grassed area that dominates the interior of the castle.
Various buildings are dotted around the interior with information boards explaining what they are. At the furthest point from the entrance is the sea gate reached by a wide ancient path that ran through the center of the grassed area. The sea gate looks as if it has been repaired in recent times and gives a good insight of what the fortress could have looked like. A bridge takes you across the shallow waters to the Bourtzi, this is where prisoners were tortured and murdered by the Turks when the fortress was under their rule.
We spent a couple of hours walking around the site and would have liked another hour or so as it is a large area to cover, but the sea and lunch was beckoning and we had more places to visit on our bikes.