Delphi and the Peloponnese

Nestling at the foot of a high cliff on the slopes of Mount Parnassos, Delphi looks out over sea of olives in the Itea Valley to the Gulf of Corinth and the Peloponnese beyond. It is a sublime location for one of the finest classical sites in Greece.

Rock Nuthatches are busy probing crevices in the ruins, whilst Cirl Buntings, Sombre Tits and Rüppell’s Warblers are all inured to people, having just experienced the summer rush! So it’s a great place to get close to these birds as Delphi enters its autumn quietude. Splashes of bright yellow Sternbergia lutea light up the slopes around the great Kastalia Spring. White-banded Graylings and Pygmy Skippers fly up as we photograph the dark-anthered pink goblets of Colchicum cupanii, abundant here. Autumnal maquis is a colourful sight, the open ground between the red, tawny and gold bushes dotted with the white stars of Crocus hadriaticus subspecies parnassicus, whilst Crocus cancellatus subspecies maaziaricus is a delicate shade of blue set-off by vibrant orange styles. Tortoises will be keeping a wary eye out for the Golden Eagles above as we photograph deep pink tessellated Colchicum bivonae. Lanner Falcon flies above barren-looking slopes by the ski resort where Alpine Accentor, Shore Lark and Snowfinch search our titbits amongst strange little Sternbergia colchiciflora.

Parnassos’s sister mountains, Vardousia and huge Giona, dominate a fantastically wild and beautiful region, their skirts rumpled by ridges cloaked in Greek Fir and Chestnut, and cut by tremendous gorges. Cyclamens produce fine shows under woods home to White-backed and Black Woodpeckers. White spires of Ungernia are altogether more obvious than diminutive Autumn Ladies Tresses, but are not so strident as the magnificent pink clumps of Epilobium fleisheri. The endemic Crocus robertianus blooms vigorously in these Southern Pindhos mountains and we’ll also seek Merendera attica and Colchicum parnassicum. Higher up, as Griffon Vultures soar high in the blue skies and Rock Partridges shout from rocky promontories we’ll find the rather worryingly-named Colchicum confusum.

For the second half of the tour we’ll move to the Peloponnese where autumn sees a magnificent show of colourful bulbs adorning the sublime scenery of the Mani Peninsula and the Taygetos Mountains at the southern tip of the Peloponnese.

Sheets of white Crocus boryi are interrupted by patches of golden-yellow Sternbergias. Some come in more than one colour form: Crocus hadriaticus in blue and white, Cyclamen graecum in both white and pink. Delicate beauties with darkly-feathered petals and black anthers are Crocus biflorus melantherus. Perhaps the most beautiful of all is lovely Crocus goulimyi whose wide-open mauve-purple flowers bloom in great photogenic clusters, though the startling Crocus cartwrightianus may take this prize. The immense walls of magical Mycenae are home to pretty Allium callimischon and Greece’s wonderful historical sites and mythology will again be to the fore at Mystra’s fabulous Byzantine Churches. Sweetly scented Narcissus serotinus and elegant Galanthus reginae-olgae adorn pastures below forests of Grecian Fir and brilliant pink Colchicum parlattoris mixes with a carpet of Scilla autumnalis and recently described Colchicum sfikasianum. Oedipoda caerulea grasshoppers flash blue hind wings as they erupt in front of grazing Hermann’s Tortoises. Our base for most of the holiday is the delightful fishing village of Gythio where the cinnamon-coloured hills of the wild Taygetos range descend to the sea. Kingfishers zip about the harbour and there are a goodly number of butterflies still about, Pygmy Skippers are frequent, we’ll see Lang’s Short-tailed Blue and Eastern Bath White, and most notable is one of Europe’s most spectacular species, the Plain Tiger. This promises to be a wonderful floral experience set in a superbly stark landscape with plenty of blue skies and a shimmering blue sea!