Monsters, Inc: Myths & Legends Travel in Greece by Richard Waters

My mission is simple: to wean our five year old son, Finn, from his staple TV diet of Ben 10 and Scooby Doo, in favour of the old myths – and we're talking poly-headed hydras, killer bulls and lightning bolts from the skies. In a word we're off to Greece. 

My own connection with the Classics got off to an inauspicious start; aged eleven in a play about Circe, my only stage note was to pop out of the trapdoor and yell "It shall be so!" dressed as Poseidon. My friend Angus Oldfield, the Cyclops thought it might be funny to stand on said exit point and keep the audience waiting. But something about the myths with their heroes, sexy sea nymphs and satyrs lingered like a pleasant aftertaste in my imagination. Perhaps it does with all of us, that's the magic of mythos. 

"We're not going to the Minotaur's maze are we Daddy?" says Finn, "that would be too scary." Instead of Crete we elect for the most myth-populated area in Greece – the rugged Peloponnese, where the original Ollie Reed of his day, Heracles served his penance to weasly King Eurystheus. 

The best thing about coming here is the ability to combine relaxation with a smattering of sightseeing. I was curious to see whether a visit to some of Heracles' haunts might animate the stories further in Finn's imagination or whether by his second set of ruins he'd be yelling for Cartoon Network and begging to go home. We choose the enchanting coastal town of Nafplio as our monster HQ; with its Venetian-influenced streets scattered with designer hotels, chi-chi boutiques and redolent kafenions, it's a great place to drop the missus and newborn daughter while Finn and I go off to retrace the first three labours. 

There's something rather odd about starting our adventure in the fabled ruins of Tiryns, the very place Heracles (Greek name for Hercules) had to return after each task only to receive another – I mean, they're supposed to be myths and here we are early one spring morning, marching through a wildflower meadow up to the summit of the palace. From here we imagine the hero booming up at the walls, the invincible Nemean lion slung over his back. In the faraway distance we sight the snow-capped mountains where he fought the beast and jump into our hire car to pursue the same journey. 

Within minutes the air seems cooler; goats crossing our serpentine path, the foothills ablaze with vermilion flowers, blood-red poppies and plump cherry blossom. Even Greeks describe the Peloponnese as the 'real Greece'. I've never been here in spring and it's unbelievably quiet and fecund, gratifyingly so. Forty minutes later and we're in the unremarkable mountain village of Nemea, accidentally walking into a pensioner's jolly in a building that we take to be Nemea museum. 

Finn finds some spent gun casings on the floor between being tickled by an old dear who looks like one of the Stygian witches, "These must belong to the hunters, maybe the lion's still alive Daddy." He says with wide eyes, "but this isn't really old Greece is it?" he mutters. An alarm bell chimes in my head - maybe these stories are better left to bedtime imaginations. 

And then Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, smiles on us and we find the right road - not an easy thing as it seems the people of Nemea would rather deter your visiting, with graffiti-spattered signposts pointing the wrong way. It's Finn who picks out the towering Corinthian columns shielded by a phalanx of spear-shaped cypress trees. "Daddy, look, it's old Greece - from the story books!" 

His face lights up and I breathe a sigh of relief. Sat among the ruins of Zeus' temple, we sift through the bones of the original tale (me and a little help from his book). Truth be told, if you get your harpies mixed up with your gorgons who's to care but the Classics police? It's the telling of the tale that matters most.

Ancient Nemea's nearby museum is overlooked by the actual hill where the hero followed the bloody beast to its lair and strangled it. My son is running around like the cat that got the cream - or the hero that caught the cat. And it's more than a little infectious.

Next up is Lake Stymfalia (labour six), even higher in the mountains. As the tale goes it's a forbidding lake with a noxious stench, terrorized by razor-beaked crows. Heracles dips his arrows in the poisonous blood of the Lernian Hydra (labour two) and spends a day shooting them from the sky. You have to be imaginative to find it, the signs are spelt in the Greek alphabet – I resort to guesswork and we find ourselves on a road that's getting narrower and more carbuncled by the inch. 

As Finn turns greener than Poseidon's tail with the onset of carsickness, the gravel path turns a corner to reveal a beautiful flower-fringed lake coalescing green and blue in the alpine sun. 

Sitting on the poppy-strewn shoreline imagining the sky blackening with birds, we tuck into our lunchbox of ham baguettes (pick some up in Nafplio as there's little by way of local amenities). The lake doesn't actually smell noxious at all, and as the first strips of sunset usher us back to civilization, we're rather sorry to leave it. Back in Nafplio my other half has been happily purchasing worry beads, a Verdi Gris bust of Aphrodite, and sipping frappes by the swanky harbour. Not a bad day for all of us then. 

If you've not visited Greece since the introduction of the Euro you're in for a surprise: a light snack of souvlaki, tzatziki, calimari and feta salad will set you back around £20; but the bitter taste soon washes away with a delicious bottle of Mythos beer. The best place to eat is at one of a clutch of tavernas on the cobbled, bougainvillea gauntlet of Staikopoulou St, running parallel to imposing Syntagma Square. A fairground was lighting up by the sea as we walked off our dinner, the air heady with wisteria, shop windows vigilant with coral-coloured Evil Eyes.

Having spent our next morning in nearby Lerna – or rather looking for it as it no longer exists - father and son finally trundle down a rutted lane to some modest ruins. Here in a swamp Heracles decapitated the many-headed reptile, torching the stumps with a firebrand. Well there's no swamp, just a vaguely sulphurous smell in the air, and a little unimpressed we return to camp. Truth is, you don't need to go to all the places the labours took place to sell the myths to your kids, and a good job too for they span the whole of Greece, Turkey, Crete and north Africa. A little further south was once the domain of the Spartans, and Finn's happy to listen as I retell the bittersweet glory of King Leonidas and his 300 warriors at the battle of Thermopylae (480BC), barely an hour and a half's drive over the Isthmus of Corinth. 

Our final day we meander to sleepy Epidavros on the east coast of the Peloponnese, home to two ancient theatres, Greek tragedy and a world-celebrated festival of Theatre in July. But Finn wasn't here to talk about Aeschylus, Euripides nor any other unpronounceable names like Asclepius, God of Healing who established a medical centre here – and nor did I didn't want to overdo it. Instead we sit and eat ice cream by the tree-lined harbour, local children wheeling by on bikes, gnarled fishermen discussing their catch by weather-beaten vessels. 

There's plenty of places to eat but my favourite is the Mouria restaurant, a favourite with actors rehearsing lines through mouthfuls of moussaka. It sits on a long pebbled shore beneath a towering mulberry tree, near the remains of a sunken city (brought down by a tsunami 175AD). Walk through an orange grove past the ruins of the smaller theatre and you'll find it.

As we returned to Nafplio in a salmon-pink sunset, past a sea of fragrant orange groves and olive trees twisting silently in the mountains, it was Finn who piped up from the backseat, “Look there's Pan over there!” – sat on a tree bough with furred haunches and horns in his hair? No, it was shepherd on a mobile phone with black jogging pants. Maybe rediscovering old Greece requires a little imaginative excavation, but it seemed through our minor adventures my son had already entered it. Here's four monster-strewn tales you might read up on before your next visit to Greece: 

Perseus and Medusa: head to the rugged Cycladic island of Serifos to find her lair.

Theseus and the Minotaur: visit ancient Knossos (Crete) and sift through the ruins for the beast's labyrinth; seek the elusive mountain cave of Zeus, or the cliffs from which Icarus flew too near the sun. 

Odysseus and the Cyclops: some say it was Sicily, while others contend the stalagmite cave on Cycladic Antiparos, was Polyphemus' home.

12 Labours of Heracles: the first six of these labours took place in the environs of the Peloponnese.

For a full list of places to stay, check out TI's listings for luxury hotels in Greece.