« Cardamyle, which is mentioned by Homer in the Gifts promised by Agamemnon, is subject to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta, having been separated from Messenia by the emperor Augustus. It is eight stades from the sea and sixty from Leuctra. Here not far from the beach is a precinct sacred to the daughters of Nereus. They say that they came up from the sea to this spot to see Pyrrhus the son of Achilles, when he was going to Sparta to wed Hermione. »
– Pausanias, Description of Greece, Laconia, 3.26.7
Kardamyli (Καρδαμύλη) is an old coastal village at the foot of the Taygetos massif. Strangely, the village is not really facing the sea, social life and shops being rather located in the main street away from the coast. It owes much of its international fame to Patrick Leigh Fermor, who lived there and praised the beauty of the surroundings. These offer in particular a network of marked trails between the sea and the mountains, which is rather rare in Greece.
