The Road of the Gods (Greece)

Six nights and around 634 miles in a loop from Athens through the Peloponnese on a Royal Enfield, the operator’s first Greek route, and it covers three thousand years of history without ever being far from the sea.

Rafina opens it, then the crossing of the Corinth Canal, a cut through solid rock that Nero began and the nineteenth century finished, and Archaia Nemea, where the Sanctuary of Zeus stands among Neolithic remains and the Nemean Games were held. Lake Doxa and the ski village of Kalavryta follow in an unexpectedly alpine setting.

Elliniko comes next by way of the Cave of the Lakes, an underground system of stalactites and terraced lakes on three levels, with the villages of Planitero, Dimitsana and Karytaina on the way. Monemvasia follows through Sparta, where the statue of Leonidas stands by the ancient remains, and Mystras, a Byzantine city built up a hillside and then abandoned, with Monemvasia itself hidden on the seaward side of a vast rock.

Nafplio is next past Geraki castle above the Laconia plain and the monastery of Elonas, built into a cliff face in the Parnon range, with lunch at Leonidio and the Argolic Gulf coast beyond. The return to Rafina takes in the theatre at Epidaurus, which seats fourteen thousand and has acoustics that still work, the Saronic Gulf, and sixteen miles of off-road through the Geraneia mountains. Bike rental is included and the price is quoted per person. Six nights suits the Peloponnese because the distances are short and the roads empty out as soon as the motorway is left behind.