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Running Through Time—The Myth and History Behind RacingThePlanet: Greece

 

As participants push through the rugged trails of the Peloponnese in RacingThePlanet: Greece 2025, they aren’t merely racing across landscapes—they are journeying through layers of legend, empire, faith, and resistance. This is a place where time folds: ancient temples lie beneath Byzantine chapels, crumbling towers rise over battlefields, and gorges echo with the footsteps of warriors, hermits, and gods.

From the mountain spine of Taygetos to the storied ruins of Sparta, each Stage is a chapter in the greater epic of Greek civilization. Below is your guide to the historic—and mythic—soul of the route.

Peloponnese: Crossroads of Empire and Myth

The Peloponnese peninsula is a region steeped in legend. It was here that Hercules performed many of his Labors, where Helen of Troy’s beauty sparked the Trojan War, and where gods were worshipped in mountain groves and seaside temples. In recorded history, the Peloponnese was home to powerful city-states like Sparta and Corinth and became a prize fought over by Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Venetians, and Ottomans.

Its terrain is dramatic and symbolic: from sheer cliffs to silent olive groves, the land mirrors the cycles of war and peace, ruin and revival.

Kardamyli: From Homer to the Revolution

Nestled on the coast of the Mani Peninsula, Kardamyli is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in Greece. It appears in Homer’s Iliad, where Agamemnon offers it to Achilles as part of a peace deal. Once a fortified port of Sparta, Kardamyli later became a stronghold during the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s.

Today, its stone towers and Byzantine chapels speak to centuries of layered history—from warrior clans to freedom fighters.

Vyros Gorge: The Royal Road of the Spartans

Winding down from the Taygetos Mountains from Vasiliki to Kardamyli into the Messenian Gulf, Vyros Gorge is both a natural marvel and an historic artery. Known in ancient times as the “Royal Road,” it linked Sparta with its port on the Messenian Gulf, Kardamyli, a lifeline during wars and sieges.

Legends say this was a sacred path walked by Spartan kings and priests en route to perform rituals at the sea. The gorge is also dotted with abandoned watermills and monasteries clinging to the cliffs, silent witnesses to the Middle Ages, Ottoman raids, and World War II resistance.

Taygetos Mountains: 

The Taygetos range is the mythical and geographical backbone of the Peloponnese. It is ancient—its name appears in Homer’s Odyssey. Named after Taygete, one of the seven Pleiades and a nymph loved by Zeus, the mountains were sacred to ancient Greeks. On the summit, Profitis Ilias (Prophet Elijah) now stands where an ancient temple to Helios (the Sun god) once stood.

Mountainous, rugged, sacred and strategic, its ridges offered natural defense for Sparta, and its slopes have monasteries, hermitages, and hidden paths. Spartan newborns deemed unfit were said to be cast from the Kaiadas, a chasm on Taygetos’s slopes, blending myth and harsh reality into the terrain itself.

The mountains have served not just as borders but as sanctuaries for monks, rebels, and now, ultrarunners.

Sellasia: The Fall of Sparta’s Last Stand

The quiet ruins of Sellasia hide one of antiquity’s great turning points. In 222 BC, it was the site of the Battle of Sellasia where Spartan King Cleomenes III was crushed by Macedonian forces, marking the end of Sparta’s dominance in Greece.

Once fiercely defended, after the battle, the town was razed and its citizens enslaved. 

Sparta: Myth, Might, and Memory

Few names echo louder through history than Sparta, the militaristic city-state famed for its discipline, laconic speech, and 300 warriors who defied Persia at Thermopylae.

Yet beyond the myth lies a city that evolved. Under Rome, it flourished with theatres and baths, under Byzantium, it remained a key post, and after centuries of occupation, it rose again during the Greek War of Independence.

Karyai & the Caryatids: Daughters of Dance and Stone

High in the Parnon mountains lies Karyai, the ancient village believed to be the birthplace of the Caryatids—the iconic female columns of the Erechtheion temple on the Athenian Acropolis.

Architecturally, a caryatid is a sculpted female figure used as a supporting column, in place of a plain pillar. The most famous examples are the six maidens (the “Caryatids”) forming the south porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens (ca. 421‑406 BC). The term karyatides literally means “maidens of Karyai,” referencing the ancient village of Karyai in Peloponnese. 

According to myth, maidens from Karyai served the goddess Artemis Karyatis and danced in sacred processions carrying baskets on their heads. These priestesses were immortalised in marble: a fusion of beauty, devotion, and strength. 

In the heart of the village today stands a modern tribute to them, a replica Caryatid gazing east, back toward Athens.

Peloponnese Rail Network: Tracks Through Time

One Stage of the race follows abandoned railway tracks, once part of an ambitious 19th-century network that stitched together mountain villages and coastal ports. Built during the reign of King George I, the railways symbolised Greece’s push into modernity after centuries under Ottoman rule. The decay and abandonment of some lines tell stories of changing economics, isolation, and shifts in infrastructure priorities.

Agios Dimitrios Monastery (Avgou): A Fortress of Faith

Built into a rocky cliff near Didyma, the Monastery of Agios Dimitrios at Avgou is a hidden gem. Often called Avgou Monastery (“Holy Monastery of Agios Dimitrios at Avgou”), it is perched in rock, built partially into it, showing features of fortress‑monasteries.

The Monastery has its roots in earlier ascetic sites from the 11th‑12th century, even before the main complex was erected (in the 15th‑16th century) on the site of older hermitage caves. Frescoes from the 17th century survive with parts dedicated to different saints. 

During the Greek War of Independence (1821), the monastery played a key role and legends tell of monks defending it with bows and boiling oil. Though it was partially burned by Ottoman forces under Ibrahim in 1825, it rose again — a symbol of spiritual resilience.

The Twin Caves of Didyma: Churches in the Earth

The village of Didyma takes its name from the Greek for “twins” — referring to two giant sinkholes just outside the settlement. These two caves (craters or sinkholes) are dramatic geological formations. Inside one of them lies ancient churches built into the rock, including Agios Georgios (13th century) and Metamorphosis. 

The caves are otherworldly — cool, quiet, and deeply spiritual. Myths say they were once sacred groves, later Christianised as monks carved chapels into their walls.

Mani & Vivari: The Last Untamed Land

The Mani Peninsula is a land apart. Isolated by mountains and sea, Mani was never fully subdued by invaders, not by Turks, Franks, or even early Greek kings. Instead, it produced pirate captains, blood feuds, and stone tower-houses that doubled as fortresses.

Local myth claims the people of Mani descend from the ancient Dorians or even Spartan exiles, and their fierce independence still defines the culture.

Vivari, a quiet fishing village, shares the same stone architecture and proximity to hidden coves, ancient chapels, and whispered tales of sea raiders and saints.

Final Thought

RacingThePlanet: Greece isn’t just a race through terrain — it’s a journey through mythology, memory, and meaning. Every step echoes with the footfall of heroes, poets, monks, and mothers. And in running this path, you too become part of its living story.

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