Nemea, Greece - Is it worth a visit?
View from atop the hill at Semeli Estates Winery!
You're visiting Greece, first thing is congratulations you made a great choice for a trip! If you have never been before then I am so excited for you and the wonderful time that we hope you have. If you have visited before and are visiting again then you know how beautiful of a country it is and why Allen and I love it so much!
The last trip that we went on we were able to stay for 2 weeks and our goal was to visit and see different parts of the country and to experience things that locals do and not just tourists.
After talking to a friend one night after arriving he suggested that we visit Nemea. It is about a 1.5 hour drive from Athens and is in Peloponnese.
Like I said earlier Nemea is in Peloponnese so if you are driving from Athens then you will drive NW along the coast to get there. The drive is truly beautiful! You will see water and mountains, villages and churches all along the way and with everything to see on your drive that hour and a half will fly by.
When you finally get to Nemea you will drive into the main street where there is a drug store, flower shop, restaurants, coffee shops among other stores. Once you drive through this main street you will then start to see more of the wine fields. You will also see some different villages, and if you watched Allen and Is YouTube video on Nemea then you know that we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a random small village. But alas we made it to our final wine destination that day, Semeli Estates.
Upon arrival you will see that the winery is on top of a big hill. At the bottom of the entrance there is a guard that gives you assess to enter onto the property. The guard however did not speak any English. So after the help of another very nice man we made it up and to the winery. Our next hurtle was that we did not book a tour and the last tour of the day was already taking place so we missed it. But luckily to us the man that greeted us when we arrived was one of the master wine makers and he took us on a private tour. It was the best ever! He took us through out the working area of the winery where we later caught up with the other group and we then joined into their group.
The tasting itself was a wonderful experience. For 28 euro ($29.59 USD) we tasted 6 different wines and had complimentary cheese and crackers to go with it! Not to mention we also had some great people on our tasting. There was another couple and there was a group of 3 woman from South African that were very fun!
After our tasting was over we went back down to the main street and checked into our Airbnb. The owner of this Airbnb was the nicest host and had knowledge of the area. He also owns Gala.Cafe. Snack. right down the street. It was a wonderful place to stop and get a quick breakfast the next morning.
We found out while talking to the other people enjoying the wine tasting with us and from Margarita (our wine tasting guide) that it was unusual that we were staying the night and not going back to Athens. Most people will come up to Nemea for the day on a tour or themselves and then go back afterwords. Allen and I decided to say the night because, why not?! Because we decided to stay the night we then got to have 2 back to back fancy dinners…. haha. Let me explain. So at our wine tasting Margarita suggested we go to dinner at Sofos. It is a great restaurant and loved by everyone in the town. She called them and told them that she had some new friends that wanted to have dinner there and she told us to go about 8:30 - 9pm. So to make a long story short we were getting hungry early so while out shopping we walked by and at 7pm they were not open. Now, in America if you are going to a restaurant at 9pm they will be open at 7pm as well… so we did not know what to think. So we went to 7 Villages, another restaurant in town because we were hungry! We ate and drank wine until we were stuffed. But on the walk back we decided to pass by Sofos one last time to see if they were open….. and they were. So we felt obligated to go in for dinner. We learned that they had all gone home to be with their families and have dinner before opening back up for the evening. As Allen explained in our video we were visiting on the weekend of Easter so Thursday night that we were eating was the last time eating before they fasted until midnight Saturday night celebrating Easter.
Now if you're asking yourself, y’all ate 2 dinners?… yes, yes we did. And were we miserable?…. yes, yes we were. And did we go to the bar afterwards?… yes, yes we did! However we had the best night. After eating 2 amazing dinners we then enjoyed the night meeting new friends and enjoying a few drinks at Anatoli.
View from our Airbnb!
Looking back on our trip now visiting Nemea was one of our best highlights! It was a beautiful town to visit, the drive to get there was amazing and the people were so kind! When we visit Greece again, and I say when not if because we love it there, we will definitely be heading back to Nemea because it made our last trip anything other than regular once so it will definitely make it anything but regular again!
If you would like more info, you can watch our YouTube video for a detailed breakdown of Nemea!