It’s with a sense of anticipation that we collect our final hire car – our eleventh of the trip – and leave Kalamata behind after our very brief stay. It may be the last few days of this long adventure but we have some exciting places lined up before we are done. Throughout the 90-minute drive it is very plain that we are in different territory now; this area experiences much more autumn and winter rainfall than most of Greece, making for the kind of lush greenery which we haven’t seen for many weeks. There are deciduous trees, giant bamboos and even a combine harvester as hard evidence of change,…