Kalamata is everything I thought Ioannina would be, yet Lonely Planet discounted it completely.  I’m tossing my Lonely Planet because the writers and I are completely at odds.

If you get a chance, go to Messinia in southwest Greece.  Kalamata is the only real city and the rest of the area is quiet countryside with beaches and plenty of room for you to live large.  Even in August, few tourists come here.

For centuries, the Messinians where Spartan helots or slaves, though their lot was a tough one–they worked the fields and populated the Spartan army–they never stopped resisting.  Relief came 350 years after their initial defeat by the Spartans.

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