This house museum in Pylos honors a local hero: Konstantinos “Kostas” Tsiklitiras, a four-time Olympic medalist in 1908 and 1912 for the standing high jump and the standing long jump. His athletic career ended in 1913 when he volunteered to fight in the First Balkan War. Sadly, Tsiklitiras died the same year from meningitis at age 24. It was only a decade ago that his family home—right beside the Pylos town hall—was restored and turned into a museum and gallery. Besides exhibits about Tsiklitiras’s athletic glory, visitors can see the collection of Frenchman René Puaux, who gathered a trove of original maps, documents, paintings and other historic artifacts about the 1827 Battle of Navarino, which stopped the Ottoman expansion into Europe.
