The light is often more beautiful in Greece than it is anywhere else in Europe. And nowhere in Greece is it more beautiful than on the Pelion Peninsula. This is a mountainous, verdant, glowing region, where there is barely a plastic sign, disco or tacky trinket shop.
Pelion is about 200 miles north of Athens, on the Greek mainland, with the Pagasitic Gulf on one side of the peninsula and the Aegean on the other. At the top of the peninsula is a mountain range whose highest peak, Mount Pliassidi, rises to 5,416 feet - some of the peaks are snow-capped, even in summer.
So lush is this region that Homer referred to it as a place of "quivering foliage". Part of its magic is its relative inaccessibility, its occasionally stormy weather and its slight roughness, all of which make it a region not greatly favoured by tourists. But some of the accommodation is wonderful. Many of the houses and flats have both stunning views and simple, comfortable, clean, pretty and functional facilities. What's more, in some of them, you even get a real loo, which is a luxury in Greece wherever you go and whatever you pay.
The main town of the region is Volos, which is not really worth even a flying visit, but take the road south, along the western coast of the peninsula, and you pass through villages with red-tiled or grey-slated roofs and whitewashed walls; blue doors and shutters; steep cobbled alleyways; large, shady squares; and small, unnoticed, Byzantine churches.
This is a part of Greece where trees abound - plane trees, oaks, horse chestnuts, eucalyptus - and the gardens burst with oranges, lemons and pomegranates, the yellow flowers of courgettes and the scarlet skins of capsicums set against toppling masses of magenta bougainvillea. And on this western side of Pelion, the water is warm and clear, and so blue that poets would fail to find words for it. The peninsula circles around the Pagasitic Gulf so completely, the effect is almost that of a lagoon. The pebbly and sandy beaches are nigh-on deserted and very clean. The further down this coast you travel, the lovelier it becomes, and the more - dare I say it - unspoilt the villages become.
Buses are few and far between, so it makes sense to hire a car, even though, like everywhere else in Greece, this can work out expensive if you do not take the time to shop around. On the road from Volos is Arghalasti, where you will find a large square full of ancient plane trees flanked by old-fashioned, cool, dark cafes, their tables ranged in neat rows on the square. The shops sell everything that the modest eater, drinker and smoker needs, and the squeamish and neurotic will be pleased to know that it also has two well-stocked pharmacies.
An old-fashioned back-street bakery and a newer one gleaming with chrome sell enough freshly-baked cheese pastries, bread and sweet cakes, such as baklava and ghadaifi, to keep most of us fat and happy. The pace is slow, the people mostly old, and their manner is gracious, in that old-fashioned way of Greek villages.
From Arghalasti, narrow, precipitous, unmetalled tracks wind down to the seaside villages, all of which have their own small, sandy or pebbly beaches and wonderful coves and bays that are but a short stroll away. Of the western-coast villages, Afissos has the most tourist life - there is a beach disco and choice of a dozen or more tavernas with varied menus. There are no roads connecting the villages, although the unmapped tracks lace their way across the hills between them, inviting you to lose yourself. However, the walks from one village to the next are not hard and are very beautiful.
South of Afissos, the villages of Lefokastro and Kalamos are like little havens where you rarely see a car. It is so slow and quiet that you can fool yourself you have drifted back 200 years. In Lefokastro, there are three tavernas: one - a standard sort of taverna - is tucked behind the small but lovely beach; another, Olympia Square, is on the sea-front, a few minutes' stroll away.
It is run by the fastest man on earth, a Greek who speaks American, tells terrifying insect-bite stories, has been chef to presidents and can cater for 30 people single-handed. He will tell you his stories and serve up whatever he has cooked that day or night, most notably and mouth-wateringly his spetzophai, a Pelion speciality of spicy local sausage in a rich sauce.
Lefokastro has only the one shop, which sells a few basics and, more importantly for visitors with children, also ice cream.
Kalamos is not unlike Lefokastro and, being on the western side of the peninsula, has sunsets that turn the hills purple and black against skies shifting from orange to mauve and copper before fading into velvety night skies lit by the occasional flash of lightning.
A few miles along the main coast road from Arghalasti are the villages of Horto and Milina. After so many small villages, Milina seems like something of a big town - not least because you can change money, hire boats and bikes, and eat at one of a dozen or so tavernas there - but, in reality, its population is only about 800. Above Milina in the hills is the steep and crooked village of Lafkos, which boasts the loveliest plane-tree square I have seen in Greece: and I've travelled a fair bit around the country.
As you progress south on the western side, the villages get smaller and the beaches a little less accessible. Once you have climbed down to them, they are almost all deserted, often extraordinarily beautiful, marvellous for swimming and safe for children. Tamarind trees on the edges of the beaches provide a little shade, but we always took an umbrella and, because there very often isn't a shop or taverna for miles, made sure we had enough water.
In ancient times, Pelion was the home of the centaurs, the half-man half-horse creatures of Greek mythology, and so there are plenty of opportunities for those visitors for whom a holiday is not complete without a good nose around ruins and places of historical and cultural interest.
Up in the hills near Volos, for example, is the village of Anakasia and the Theophilus Museum, which features the work of the primitive painter Theophilus, who lived in Volos up to his death in 1934; and in the village of Portaria, eight miles north-east of Volos, the 13th-century church of Panagia has splendid frescoes.
A little farther along the road from Portaria is the cliff-hanging village of Makrinitsa. But so steep is the escarpment on which it is perched - an awesome 2,500 feet above the valley - that it is definitely no place for anyone with even the slightest case of vertigo.
On the eastern, Aegean side of the gulf, steep tracks wind down to the sea through tiny villages and olive groves.
It is wilder and more rugged here, and the beaches bigger. The villages further north, up the eastern side of the peninsula, are visited by even fewer tourists than Arghalasti. The further north you go, the more you find yourself in orchards of apples, pears, lemons and oranges where you can wander in a dream.
The practicals: most travellers to the Pelion Peninsula fly to neighbouring Skiathos, take a taxi to the small port and get a boat to the village of Platania (though often only after a few hours' wait). Or you can hire a car or take a taxi. The whole journey is a bit of a trek, taking almost a whole day. Alternatively, you can fly to Athens, hire a car and drive (about a six-hour journey).