May 1st and Greece celebrated Spring… the Festival of Flowers.

Protomagia!!! That is the name of this celebration and as a day off for everybody we did what our ancestors did thousands years ago… Celebrate the Mother Nature!

Maios (May), the last month of Spring took its name from the Goddess Maja which goddess took her name from the ancient word Maia, the nurse and mother.

May according to the popular cognizance has two meanings, the good and the bad, rebirth and death. The custom celebration of the final victory of the summer against winter as the victory of the life against death go back at the ancient years and accumulated at the first day of May.

Anthestiria, a celebration in honor of Dionysos the God of theatre and parties were also the festivals of souls, plants and flowers, celebrating the rebirth of man and nature.

May the first is the day that Greeks use to collect flowers and prepare the May flower wreath which hang outside their home door and keep it there until June 24th, the day that Greeks celebrate the day of Saint John preparing big fires to burn these flower wreaths. Everybody jumps over these fires.

For this year my plan was to travel and be in many beautiful places. I wanted to come in touch with the mother nature, feeling all this spring beauty with all my senses, stay away for a few days from the big busy capital.

I visited many places but at the 1st of May, the day of "Protomagia" celebration I was in Monemvasia, a dreamy place, a town inside a castle.

The poet Ritsos' ‘stone ship' stoically stands on the southern tip of Laconia ready to take you on a fanciful voyage through time and history.

Monemvasia its formal name, Monemvasia its poetic version, Monemvasia to the locals, Malvouazi to the Franks and Malmsy to the English. No matter how it is named this beautiful seaside village got its name because the castle had only one entrance (‘moni emvasi'). Monemvasia is 84 nautical miles from Piraeus and 320 km from Athens.

The drive from Athens is about four and a half hours and if you prefer to travel by coach the trip takes slightly longer because the stops at many of the small villages after Sparta are frequent. The route to take is along the national road Athens – Corinth and then Corinth – Tripolis through the Artemisios tunnel.

The road to Tripolis is very good. Driving along the country road that leads to Monemvasia, you can see opposite the coast the huge rock which is connected to the land by a narrow road. Directly after this you enter Nea Monemvasia, the village a few metres from the quay.

By taking the main road you come to the quay in front of you there is a bridge leading to the castle – known as Palia Monemvasia.

You can leave your car in Nea Monemvasia and walk to the castle (it is about a 20-minute walk) or you can take the mini-bus which is quite frequent, or take your car which you must leave outside the castle entrance.

The rock was separated from the land after a violent earthquake in 375 AD. In the 6th century AD the Laconians, hunted by the Avarans, built the castle as protection, they built a wooden drawbridge, fortified the walls and lived inside.

The town owes its name to the narrow strip of land linking the coast with the rock. "Monemvasia" is derived from the words moni emvasi , ie., sole approach. The appellation originates with the Laconians who arrived here in the 6th century AD, to shelter from the raids on the mainland. In an old record referring to the "settlement of Monemvasia" we find an early description of how the Laconians discovered this remote place by the sea, named it as described above, and settled it. Since then, and for more than a thousand years, Monemvasia experienced days of glory and fame, though also sieges and occupation. The information regarding its first centuries is scant.

We hear however of its brave resistance to a raid by the Normans in the mid-12th century. A century later, the courage of the defenders and the naturally fortified position of the rock defeated the attempt of William Villehardouin to subdue it by assault, but the town fell in 1249 because of hunger, after a close siege of three years. Ten years later William Villehardouin was made prisoner by Michael Paleologus and bought his freedom by handing to the Byzantines the fortresses of Mistras, Maini and Monemvasia. Thus Monemvasia reverted to Byzantine rule, became an important naval and military base and developed both economically and culturally.

However it also became a target for pirates. The terrible attack of the Catalans in 1292 is legendary. One side-effect was that while repelling the innumerable pirate raids, the inhabitants became quite adept themselves at naval warfare.

In 1419 it fell for the first time, but only for a sholt period, to the Venetians. Once again it revelted to Byzantine rule and when in 1460 Mistras surrendered to the Turks Monemvasia remained the only free Greek city. For a while it came under the protection of the Pope who gave it to the Venetians in 1464.

Since then it became the epicentre of the wars between Venice and Turkey. The Venetians called it the "Neapolis of Malvazia" because of the appellation of the fine, aromatic wine Malvazia that was transpolted to the West via Monemvasia.

In 1540 the Turks captured it after a three-year siege, and named it "Castle of the Violets". The Venetians re-captured it in 1690, but in 1715 they sold it to their adversaries. Later, the town declined after the failed insurrection of 1770. It was liberated on July 23, 1821.

Passing through the sole gate to the tower feels like crossing the threshold of history.
A history which gave on 15th century to Monemvasia glory and prosperity, as the medieval town counted 50,000 inhabitants. Today not more than 50 people live there yet the echoes of the past still captivate the visitor.

More than forty churches are strewn among the narrow streets. The most important and the largest is the church of Elkomenos Hristos (Christ Elkomenos = Dragged to the Cross), the cathedral of Monemvasia, It was famous for the picture of Christ Elkomenos, which was removed by Isaak Angelos and transported to Constantinople.

The temple was founded in the 13th century by the Emperor Andronicos II Paleologus but was given its later aspect by the Venetians in 1699. In the place of the old picture is one with the same subject from 1700, painted in the Ionian Islands. There is however a superb painting of the Crucifixion dating from the 14th century and two marble imperial thrones.

A bell tower is near the main square, a museum with artifacts from the town's early years and an old cannon. This square in reality is a large balcony with a breathtaking view of the sea.

The upper town has been long abandoned. At turns luminous and menacing, depending on the brightness of the sun, it lies along the crests of the rock. A path of hairpin bends passes the ruins of once-majestic buildings and leads to Aghia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), a beautifully intact mid-12th-century Byzantine church with a sculptured door and marble reliefs. The highest peak in the upper town, accessible by climbing a trail of lush brush, is about 656 feet above sea level.
Meanwhile, Monemvasia's inhabited lower town has churned for centuries, thanks to its merchants and artisans.

Try the Kaltsounia or Saita, country pastry envelopes stuffed with mountain greens. They are served with grated cheese and fresh olive oil.
Don't forget to try goges or gogles, wonderful homemade pasta. Try it with hot butter.

Monemvasia was famous from the ancient years for its excellent wine, the Malvazia or Malvasia and still we can find grapevines inside the castle.

Greek Malvasia or Malmsey was the most valuable wine of all during the middle ages. Unlike Muscat wines, Malvasia wines were not made from a single grape variety. (Malvasia is the Venetian name for Monemvasia where these wines originally came from).

Monemvasia / Malvasia wine was popularised and traded by the Venetians, but it was not invented by them. It was a semi-aromatic sweet wine of the kind we know in Italy as "passito". It was a wine in the tradition of Greek sweet wines going back to antiquity.

Hesiod, in about 750 BC writes: "pluck the clustered grapes and bring them to your harvest home. Expose them to the sun ten days and night then shadow then for five, and on the sixth pour into jars glad Dionysios' gift".

Directly to the left of the gate is the home of the Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos.
His statue which stands outside his home represents a familiar figure to me. I remember well Yiannis Ritsos. My family had close relationship with his family. His wife, Garifalitsa, was our family physician and Ritsos spent many years at my birthplace, Karlovasi. I remember him sitting at his armchair which was built by the people of my town. It was a present for this great poet who had connected his life with this place by the people who loved him and will never forget him. His armchair was beside the sea looking at it.

I posed for this photo with his statue bust in Monemvasia. I was wet from the heavy spring rain of the day but happy that I had one more time the luck to visit the birthplace and the house of the great poet.

Yannis Ritsos never forgot Monemvasia, even after he left for literary success in Athens.

Jailed for his leftist beliefs before enjoying a resurgence in his later years, Ritsos was one of the most prolific poets of his generation. He died in 1990 and was buried in Monemvasia's cemetery. His pompadoured bust stares at the sea from the courtyard of his childhood home in the lower town.

Ritsos's verses, including the poem “Monemvasiotisses,” which was published in 1987 and is devoted to the town's women, sometimes referred to his lonely rock with the single entrance. In its resilience, he celebrated freedom.

“So many years, besieged by mainland and by sea,” he wrote in his 1945 epic poem “Romiosini.” “They've all been hungry, all been killed, and yet — not a single one is dead.”

Monemvasia for me is a magic place. I travel there and I feel I travel at the time. Being there is like I go back to the place I had designed in my mind many years ago... a dreamy place. All these memories come back again...
The old sweet grand grand mother... the cold days... the warm hug which was my nest... the fireplace... and the stories. My God... how much I loved those cold days...

Penelope, my grand-grand mother who used to dress herself with those black dresses that a widow Greek woman had to wear during those years was the storyteller and I learned from her about the ages of the Kings and Queens. He told me about the knight who will search to find me... and this knight will be my mate, my companion in this life.
Well... she wanted to pass me what she had at her mind about this life. It was this window which made her life more bright. She prepared those stories by herself. A world of illusions....

After all these years... I took many lessons from my life. I learned that the knights does not live in our ages. I learned that even at their age the knights were not like those who had at her mind my sweet grand-grandma but... again... this place, Monemvasia, brings back all this dream.

When you visit Monemvasia you will have this sense. You will feel you live at this timezone of the knights!