People have been travelling to the Peloponnese in search of health for thousands of years. At Epidaurus, the Sanctuary of Asklepios drew the ancient world to bathe, walk, sleep and watch theatre as part of the cure. Health was understood as a whole: what you ate, how you moved, what you saw and heard, the company you kept, the air around you. The great stone theatre is still there, its acoustics good enough that a coin dropped on the stage carries clearly to the top row.

The peninsula still lends itself beautifully to that way of thinking. In Mani, the Taygetos mountains fall abruptly into the sea, tower houses cling to the hillsides and the light on the olive groves at four in the afternoon does something no photograph quite catches.

Further north, the coast around Messenia softens into long sandy beaches and pine forest.

Today, thoughtful spas and restorative retreats sit among the mountains, the sea and the olive country. In many ways, they echo that ancient view: that where you are, what you eat and how you spend your days are inseparable from how well you feel.