Monemvasia advice please

[Vineyard View]

We are looking at a trip next year that includes Monemvasia as a port. In looking at reviews it appears to be a pretty lovely historic experience. In looking at excursions for ideas and reading reviews it seems that Mystras is not to be missed on this trip as well. We are not ship excursions people. I am wondering if Mystras is easy to get to independently from port via taxi or?  If not, does anyone have a guide they might recommend for 1/2 day?  Also wondering if we do not go to Mystras if Monemvasia is enough for the better part of the day?  The excursion is showing 6 hours and that would not leave much time to explore Monemvasia. 

[marazul]

2 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

We are looking at a trip next year that includes Monemvasia as a port. In looking at reviews it appears to be a pretty lovely historic experience. In looking at excursions for ideas and reading reviews it seems that Mystras is not to be missed on this trip as well. We are not ship excursions people. I am wondering if Mystras is easy to get to independently from port via taxi or?  If not, does anyone have a guide they might recommend for 1/2 day?  Also wondering if we do not go to Mystras if Monemvasia is enough for the better part of the day?  The excursion is showing 6 hours and that would not leave much time to explore Monemvasia. 

[marazul]

15 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

We are looking at a trip next year that includes Monemvasia as a port. In looking at reviews it appears to be a pretty lovely historic experience. In looking at excursions for ideas and reading reviews it seems that Mystras is not to be missed on this trip as well. We are not ship excursions people. I am wondering if Mystras is easy to get to independently from port via taxi or?  If not, does anyone have a guide they might recommend for 1/2 day?  Also wondering if we do not go to Mystras if Monemvasia is enough for the better part of the day?  The excursion is showing 6 hours and that would not leave much time to explore Monemvasia. 

Sorry.  I don't know what happened with the above post.

 

To answer your question.  We have been to Mystras on a land trip and it is indeed wonderful.  However, IMO, it is too far from Monemvassia.  (It is 1.5 hours one way from Monemvassia.)  Save it for another cruise that stops in Gythio or for a land trip.

Instead, enjoy Monemvassia itself.  It is a jewel and not to be missed.  I gather you are on Seabourn.  Monemvassia is one of the highlights of this cruise.  Do not miss it.  I posted about it on the SB board a while back.  It is very easy to do yourself by taking the little city bus that goes across the causeway, but I would recommend the SB walking tour to get the most of it.

 

And don't make the mistake some people have made.  The town you tender to is called Gefira.  Monemvassia is on the island at the end of the causeway and not visible from Gefira.  Don't miss the sailing in or out to get the full effect of the town.

Edited June 23, 2023 by marazul

[Vineyard View]

We are taking Seabourn!  Thank you very much for this advice. This is great to know. We truly do not like excursions and so I hesitate on booking any. We booked two on our just completed Seabourn trip and it really confirmed for us we they are not a good fit (one from Vis to Hvar was horrible). So to understand better, we would need to take a bus rather than walk to Monemvasia? I am not sure about even doing a walking tour but if you think it was well worth it I would consider rethinking that. Did it leave you with enough time?  I do not want to do the whole walk with a large group, have lunch with them, then have 30-60 min to explore on your own type of thing that always seems to happen. I really appreciate your feedback. I wonder if you were on a similar itinerary to the one we just booked. Our only hesitation to this one is it seems that several of the “new for us” ports are indeed a distance from the true calling of the port stop, and therefore require excursions to enjoy that stop. 

[marazul]

25 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

We are taking Seabourn!  Thank you very much for this advice. This is great to know. We truly do not like excursions and so I hesitate on booking any. We booked two on our just completed Seabourn trip and it really confirmed for us we they are not a good fit (one from Vis to Hvar was horrible). So to understand better, we would need to take a bus rather than walk to Monemvasia? I am not sure about even doing a walking tour but if you think it was well worth it I would consider rethinking that. Did it leave you with enough time?  I do not want to do the whole walk with a large group, have lunch with them, then have 30-60 min to explore on your own type of thing that always seems to happen. I really appreciate your feedback. I wonder if you were on a similar itinerary to the one we just booked. Our only hesitation to this one is it seems that several of the “new for us” ports are indeed a distance from the true calling of the port stop, and therefore require excursions to enjoy that stop. 

You could walk the causeway or take a 5 minute drive on the bus.  The SB excursion uses the bus to get there and gives you the return ticket to go back on your own whenever you want to.  It is just a very good walking tour (we were only 15 people or so) and you are free at the end to do whatever you want and go back when you want to on your own.  The bus runs every 15-20 minutes.  We had lunch in Monemvassia, looked around some more and took the bus back.  We took the tender to the boat, got our bathing suits on and went to the beach in Gefira afterwards.  It was really hot when we were there, so the little bus instead of walking was good.  BTW, the fare is only a couple of euros.   

 

The Mystras bus was getting back when we returned from the beach.  You would not have time to go to Monemvassia if you go to Mystras and that would be a waste.  Mystras is very accessible on a day trip from Athens, but Monemvassia is more out of the way by road and a cruise is the ideal way to go there. This is one of the ports that makes that cruise special and is a "true calling" port.  

Edited June 23, 2023 by marazul

[Vineyard View]

Awesome information. Again. We will be there late April so heat shouldn’t be a problem, but I suppose rain could. I will look at the walking tour. Thank you.  
I am over on Seabourn looking for all your recommendations from your trip and so far have not been able to locate. Could you guide me to the approx date where I can find this?

[cruisemom42]

This time I totally agree with marazul. 😁

 

I am doing Mystras from Gythion this year, having concluded it is too far to do from the port for Monemvasia. 

 

Monemvasia is just about the prettiest little place you'll ever see from the water (where ships anchor) and also from land. It is a small walled village and everywhere you walk or look, there is something pretty to see -- the houses, the gardens, the narrow alleyways, the sea views. For the ambitious, there is also a (long) walk to the ancient castle and church at the top of the hill -- too long for me!  

 

I would suggest taking the walking tour first to get your bearings, then just enjoy wandering, have lunch, etc. 

 

(One of the tours offered from Gythion on my Azamara cruise is to Monemvasia and I recall when reading the shorex descriptions that one of the prettiest/most historic churches is closed for renovations as of now. Not sure when it will reopen, but that shouldn't change your decision....)

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by cruisemom42

[marazul]

2 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

Awesome information. Again. We will be there late April so heat shouldn’t be a problem, but I suppose rain could. I will look at the walking tour. Thank you.  
I am over on Seabourn looking for all your recommendations from your trip and so far have not been able to locate. Could you guide me to the approx date where I can find this?

CC seems to have deleted all threads before 2020!  We went pre-Covid in 2018.  It is a shame because I posted on all the ports and they seem to be doing the same itinerary again.

I looked in my notes and found the name of the tour guide in Brindisi.  It is Alessandro Perrone of https://pugliaexperience.wordpress.com/ 

[Vineyard View]

4 hours ago, marazul said:

CC seems to have deleted all threads before 2020!  We went pre-Covid in 2018.  It is a shame because I posted on all the ports and they seem to be doing the same itinerary again.

I looked in my notes and found the name of the tour guide in Brindisi.  It is Alessandro Perrone of https://pugliaexperience.wordpress.com/ 

Thank you!  I was wondering if it was just me, but I sure couldn’t find it. Darn. I would sure like to read that. Is it listed under your personal CC account still, or all is wiped out. I haven’t looked at whether my posts pre Covid were wiped. That is strange because there is a lot of valuable information in them - including tour guides - which I found difficult to locate on our just completed Seabourn trip. It used to be fairly easy to find reviews of independent guides. Thank you very much for this information. 

[Vineyard View]

So after reading what you both have shared, I am pretty excited about this port!  Thank you both very much!

[marazul]

33 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

Thank you!  I was wondering if it was just me, but I sure couldn’t find it. Darn. I would sure like to read that. Is it listed under your personal CC account still, or all is wiped out. I haven’t looked at whether my posts pre Covid were wiped. That is strange because there is a lot of valuable information in them - including tour guides - which I found difficult to locate on our just completed Seabourn trip. It used to be fairly easy to find reviews of independent guides. Thank you very much for this information. 

Wiped out. Nothing before 2021.

Have you checked your own posts to see if the same thing happened to you?  Just curious...

[frantic36]

2 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

So after reading what you both have shared, I am pretty excited about this port!  Thank you both very much!

 

 

Monemvasia is truly lovely. We opted to walk around by ourselves but found the bus ride over the causeway to be efficient to get to the town itself.

 

We climbed up to the ruins of the Byzantine Church but you do have to be reasonably fit as it is a good 20-25 minute steep walk. Wear good shoes with grip as coming down the old steps and paths are slippery due to age, but the path does go all the way to the church. It was worth it to us to so the old painted frescoes on the church walls and signage included English.

 

 

As Marazul mentioned the town itself is lovely to walk around and enjoy lunch.

 

We met the cafe owners dog who was very friendly and we love dogs.

 

Julie

[Vineyard View]

2 hours ago, marazul said:

Wiped out. Nothing before 2021.

Have you checked your own posts to see if the same thing happened to you?  Just curious...

Just looked. Nothing before 2/21 

‘Wow. What a shame to loose everyone’s experiences and contacts for guides. That is a real shame. I think CC should have put something out there ahead of time so that people could capture some of that prior to doing this. 

[marazul]

Great pictures, Julie.

After seeing the menu, I recommend the tomato patties (fritters).  They are a specialty of Santorini, but good here too.

Edited June 24, 2023 by marazul

[Vineyard View]

Julie, thank you for these pictures and stories. It truly looks terrific. We love places like this. That is truly a ways up to get to the Church. What a find once you got there though!  And cute pup as well!! 

[marazul]

5 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

Just looked. Nothing before 2/21 

‘Wow. What a shame to loose everyone’s experiences and contacts for guides. That is a real shame. I think CC should have put something out there ahead of time so that people could capture some of that prior to doing this. 

Bummer. I agree.  I could have copied a few old posts.

[cruisemom42]

2 hours ago, marazul said:

Bummer. I agree.  I could have copied a few old posts.

 

I think the posts are there. Through a Google search (often my method of choice since CC search has never been great), I found this old post about Zadar that I responded to way back in 2015, lol:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/topic/759362-zadar-what-to-see-amp-do/

 

I suspect the last time CC changed its platform or interface or whatever, they just decided not to index posts older than some cut off point, so you can't search for them through the CC search function....

 

[Vineyard View]

Interesting. I would never have thought of that. Although, often when I am googling a location old TripAdvisor posts populate, so I guess it make sense. Thank you for this. 
I still wish we could just look under our accounts though! As well as the ports of call for private guide reviews and suggestions. It was really helpful. 
‘Thanks for the info about Zada. As you know it is another port I am researching!

[marazul]

1 hour ago, Vineyard View said:

Interesting. I would never have thought of that. Although, often when I am googling a location old TripAdvisor posts populate, so I guess it make sense. Thank you for this. 
I still wish we could just look under our accounts though! As well as the ports of call for private guide reviews and suggestions. It was really helpful. 
‘Thanks for the info about Zada. As you know it is another port I am researching!

 

10 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I think the posts are there. Through a Google search (often my method of choice since CC search has never been great), I found this old post about Zadar that I responded to way back in 2015, lol:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/topic/759362-zadar-what-to-see-amp-do/

 

I suspect the last time CC changed its platform or interface or whatever, they just decided not to index posts older than some cut off point, so you can't search for them through the CC search function....

 

Thanks, cruisemom!

I found the post.  I thought I had posted more, but it is what it is. It was the first or second cruise where Monemvassia had been added to the SB itineraries.

 

 

[Vineyard View]

Thank you for taking the time to do this for me marazul. I really appreciate this. It looks like the itinerary is slightly different on this B2B we have booked. I wish after this post that we also had Gytheo on our route to see Mystras. We will go into Athens early as we always do before embarking, but in looking that drive would be an awful long day trip to do from there. We have several repeat ports (Athens, Katakolon, Dubrovnik, Kotor and, Vodice, Venice, Nafplion) - all but two (Vodice/Katakolon) we look forward to seeing again. Monemvasia, Brindisi, Zadar, Corfu, Sami in Greece are all new. I guess my main goal here is to figure out if the new ports support repeating the others. So I appreciate all this information. 
 

[marazul]

6 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

Thank you for taking the time to do this for me marazul. I really appreciate this. It looks like the itinerary is slightly different on this B2B we have booked. I wish after this post that we also had Gytheo on our route to see Mystras. We will go into Athens early as we always do before embarking, but in looking that drive would be an awful long day trip to do from there. We have several repeat ports (Athens, Katakolon, Dubrovnik, Kotor and, Vodice, Venice, Nafplion) - all but two (Vodice/Katakolon) we look forward to seeing again. Monemvasia, Brindisi, Zadar, Corfu, Sami in Greece are all new. I guess my main goal here is to figure out if the new ports support repeating the others. So I appreciate all this information. 
 

You could go to Mistras from Nafplion on a long port day. About the same driving time as from Monemvassia.

[Vineyard View]

We sail at 5:00 that day and it’s the last day so that’s probably not a great combo but it was a good idea!