Stoupa- the Good Old Days?
read time: 5 mins
Reflections on a forty year love affair
October half-term, 1986: my first visit to Stoupa and a hugely significant date in my personal calendar. Not that I had any idea then that this last-minute attempt to escape the gloom of another English winter would prove to have such a lasting effect on my life. Though, looking back, there were perhaps hints that this was to be no ordinary October get-away.
In those early years Kalamata airport was primarily a military base, with no international franchise. So when our internal flight from Athens landed, there were none of the usual rituals of airport arrivals: a lorry simply drove our luggage across the tarmac and left us to it. Having clambered up and grabbed our cases, we eventually identified a lone car on the fore-court as the one we had optimistically pre-booked, (the agent, we discovered, was having a chat with a friend but had obligingly left the keys on the passenger seat). We were ready to set off on our exploration of the Mani peninsula: a slightly unorthodox start, but so far, so good.
Kalamata in trouble
However, we realised fairly quickly that there was something wrong. As we approached the Kalamata sea-front in the fading light , there was none of that evening buzz that all Greek towns have in their bars and tavernas. Instead, an eerie silence and grim rows of large tents pitched along the river bed and the beach, sent by the government, we later discovered, as emergency housing. It was just a month since an earthquake had hit the city – a much under-reported earthquake in the western press since fatality numbers, on the earthquake scale, were low (20) and therefore not deemed worthy of headline treatment. We had no idea what had taken place.
A lucky escape?
What had been totally overlooked by the the press was the reason for the low numbers: when the earthquake struck, virtually the entire population of Kalamata was gathered outside, down by the quay, to celebrate the launching of a new ferry-boat – not tucked up at home as sitting targets. Most of the people were therefore, thankfully, safe but the city itself was in a sorry state: 20% of the buildings had to be demolished and reconstruction took five years.
Unsurprisingly, we felt uncomfortable there, intruders in a city struggling to find some normality and decided not to linger, so we pressed on south through the darkness. We drove over the mountains, straight through Kardamyli which seemed totally shut down for the winter until, luckily, we turned off the road at Stoupa and found the Stoupa Hotel open for business – even if we proved to be its only customers. We were exhausted and fell into bed, totally unaware of our surroundings; street lighting did not exist in those days and I have no memory of the starlit skies revealing anything of our surroundings. In truth I think we were stunned by what we had seen in Kalamata. So it was a rather subdued introduction to a village which was to feature so largely in our lives.
“We did venture south to Limeni and on to lunch at Gerolimenas and we explored some of the old stone villages above us but we were always drawn back to Stoupa”
But that all changed the next morning. When I threw open the shutters I was completely bowled over. It was one of those glorious October days of which we have so many here (didn’t the sun shine for the entire month last year?) So, brilliant sunshine and the clearest of skies as a backdrop to the majestic mountains behind; a tranquil transparent sea and scarcely a soul in sight. Stoupa was truly idyllic. And remained so for the entire week. We did venture south to Limeni and on to lunch at Gerolimenas and we explored some of the old stone villages above us but we were always drawn back to Stoupa. We stayed at the Stoupa hotel for the entire week – never our intention -and, after making friends with a few of the local Greeks, agreed at the end of it (as so many others have done since) that of all the places we had visited in Greece this was the one which ticked all the boxes.
Kalogria beach
Before leaving that October we found a house above Kalogria which we could rent with a group of friends (all teachers, condemned to August holidays) the following year: an experiment which quickly became a habit every August until we bought a holiday home of our own here in 1990. But it was a very different Kalogria then. No bars, no tavernas, no apartments. Just the little house on the point and one small cottage tucked further back. Not a sunbed in sight! We used to lie under the tamarisk trees at the back of the beach and walk across virtually empty sands to swim. In August!
Stoupa beach
Greeks, who love their myths, would have us believe that Zeus chose Kalogria as the place to seduce Leda. And in those days you could understand their thinking. Today’s Kalogria would never have made Zeus’ short list – far too large an audience. Stoupa was very different too. It was a quiet but established village, served by four tavernas: Pefko, Aktaion (as it later became known when it was transformed into a bar), Petros’ taverna next door to it (now a gift shop) and a souvlaki place on the side road leading to the Leftron hotel. Akrogiali was an ouzeri, Five Brothers was a kafenion. And that was it.
The reason for the explosion which hit Stoupa was the huge boost given to tourism by the building of the motorway down from Athens and the opening of Kalamata airport to commercial, international flights, both of which happened in the nineties. What had until then been a fairly obscure Greek village to which mostly Athenians came on holiday in August, was transformed almost overnight – or so it felt. New buildings sprang up, old ones were adapted, travel reps arrived, young men from surrounding villages hastily trained to be waiters and- eventually – sunbeds appeared. Successive waves of English holiday-makers (11 flights a week to Kalamata from the UK in peak season) fell in love with Stoupa, returning year after year; some of them bought holiday or permanent homes here. The result was the extension of the holiday season from six weeks to six months and beyond. Time indeed does not stand still.
These rather grainy Google Earth images show how things can change, despite it being a decade o
Use the central arrows to reveal each photo.
So what do I think of all the changes I have witnessed? A mixed reaction, really. In a perfect world I would like Stoupa and its surroundings to have remained exactly as it was in 1986 but life doesn’t work like that and it is not all doom and gloom. We have avoided the high-rise horrors you see in other parts of Greece and all round the Mediterranean, and we have no rows of shops selling tatty souvenirs. I will spare you the recent road re-surfacing saga and treat it as a protracted aberration; it has, in my opinion, made very little difference! Stoupa has, in most other ways, shown remarkable restraint and the sea-front looks much as it did 30 years ago; there may be a few more buildings but they are softened by surrounding trees and do not obtrude. I wish I could say the same for the beach! Serried ranks of sun beds are a pet hate of mine and, on a bad day in mid-summer, as I hunt for a space for my beach mat, I can imagine I am in Benidorm or Rimini – an exaggeration, I know, but the feeling is real enough. I also wish I was not engulfed by quite so many English voices everywhere I go; again, on a bad day I can feel as if I am in a mini-England, which is precisely what I came here to escape. (Totally unreasonable, I confess, as everyone has as much right as I do to be here). Fortunately these feelings never last long because essentially Stoupa is unchanged. A swim in that glorious sea, the sight of those mountains as I turn over to float on my back, an evening in Five Brothers which has scarcely changed in 25 years – or simply a conversation with Greeks in which their unique sense of irony can still take me by surprise – and I fall in love with Stoupa all over again. I just have to share it with rather more people than I would like! It may be worth noting that from a Greek perspective, tourism has provided work for many who would otherwise have had to leave the area, and maybe even the country, to find employment; that has to be a plus.
My personal story has not featured in these later reflections. To tie up any loose ends I should maybe explain that after those early Kalogria holidays and the purchase or our holiday home – in the so-called English Houses – we came to Stoupa three or four times every year , for more years than I can remember. (One of the perks, you could argue, of teaching). Then came retirement and, sadly, the death of my husband, both factors requiring a major decision. It was not difficult to make. I sold up in the UK over 20 years ago and moved into a larger stone-built house to live here permanently.
It is a decision I have never once regretted
0 Comments