I did not establish a base camp in Kardamili on the Mani Peninsula in the Peloponnese to inconvenience Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor.

After all, the English World War II commando/hero and knighted author, who is considered one of the world’s leading travel writers, is 95. He deserves to be left in peace at the home he built on the Kalamitsi beach just a few kilometers out of town following his arrival here in 1962.

Sir Patrick’s home near Kardamili.

The main reason I was looking forward to staying here while MedTrekking through the area is because Kardamili was one of the seven cities offered by Agamemnon to Achilles if the warrior would get back into action during the Trojan War.

But I did make an offer to Elpida, Sir Patrick’s long-time housekeeper and assistant, in an effort to cheer up the ailing man who walked the length of Europe as a teenager and swam the Hellespont in his 60s.

“If he’s up for it I’ll show him my legs and tell him some amusing walking adventure stories to pep him up,” I told her. “Or maybe he’d like to see some pictures of my 90-year-old mother or go for a swim.”

I figured Sir Patrick would laugh if he took a look at all of the cuts and scratches I got while MedTrekking 34 kilometers from Kardamili to remote Chotasia beach yesterday. And I thought a few of my patented Follow the Idiot anecdotes– my fall in Morocco, my encounter with thieving Gypsies in Italy, my nights at a nudist camp in France, my adoration of ragazze Siciliana, the time I lost my passport and money in the Mediterranean – would bring a smile to his face.

And, who knows, Sir Patrick, whose wife Joan died seven years ago, might hit it off with mom someday.

I did linger and loiter near his home long enough to notice the leaking water tank outside the study, where the front door was ajar, and observe that the steps down to his pebbled beach hadn’t been used lately. The house, with “190” scrawled on the front gate, is still the definition, despite nearby homes built during recent decades, of a writer’s serene seaside retreat. There’s a formidable six-feet high stone wall around the property, yet a quiet passerby can hear conversation through the open grey shutters and see individual olives ripening in the terraced grove amid towering cypresses.

I wasn’t disappointed when Elpida nixed my visit this morning and informed me “Sir Patrick has the flu.” I’m no longer working for People Magazine, when I wouldn’t have left town without an interview or some kind of scoop, and doubt that I could add much to William Dalrymple’s excellent 2008 profile of Leigh Fermor (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3559958/Patrick-Leigh-Fermor-The-man-who-walked.html).

So I politely thanked Elpida and told her to wish Sir Patrick a speedy recovery.

But I’ll bet he would have laughed at the state of my legs.

Coincidentally the German couple from Stuttgart who picked me up hitchhiking early yesterday evening had just read one of Sir Patrick’s Greek travel books and we discussed his works during the 45-minute drive back to Kardamili.

The outdoorsy tourists even seemed to admire my sweaty and smelly state after I walked an hour uphill from the Chotasia beach to the main road. That laborious march followed a somewhat leisurely ten-hour MedTrek that included a Greek salad for lunch in end-of-the-road Trahila in the middle of the afternoon. But I’m not sure that even Sir Patrick in his prime would have enjoyed the last six thistle-biting, cliff-hanging, rock-cutting, briar-bashing pathless kilometers of that particular hiking day. (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=36.73842,22.33158&ll=36.73842,22.33158&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1).

I pointed out Sir Patrick’s home as we drove by Kalamitsi and when we arrived at my squat in Kardamili I showed the backpacking Germans some photos I took the other day of nearby Ancient Messini.

Ancient Messini from atop Mount Ithome.

Ancient Messini looks as good as new.

“It wouldn’t be as exciting as meeting Sir Patrick but these are some of the most surprising ruins I’ve run into,” I mentioned. “And it’s only an hour’s climb to the top of Mouth Ithome and the temple dedicated to Zeus. Say a prayer for Sir Patrick if you get there.”

Two headless maidens in Ancient Messini.

Text and Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."