In springtime it is glorious place to walk. The olive groves are opaque with pollen, wild flowers carpet the ground beneath the trees and melting snow waters gush down the mountains before sinking into underground streams to reform as icy tendrils that curl about ones feet on early morning swims from empty beaches.
This was the Mani, the far-flung central peninsular of the Peloponnese, uncluttered and pristine it’s a wild place; the people once infamous for piracy and banditry and the landscape contrasting between arid, ochreous rocks scattered with ruined tower citadels and verdant Cyprus strewn olive groves leading to the clear, blue Ionian sea.
Affluent Athenians drive for four and a half hours on perilous roads to reach their weekend villas here, its charm, an open secret among the Greeks. We were staying at the Notos Hotel a stylish and peaceful retreat built into the rocks above the broad shingle beach of Kardamili. In the evenings we joined the Athenians to gather in the amiable bars of this small village, where Byzantine streets lined with castellated houses of golden stone, lead to the sparkling Ionian Sea. It is here that the nereids came ashore to gaze at Neoptolemos, son of Achilles and in ancient times a temple was built in Kardamili in honour of their stay. It vanished long ago supplanted by a church dedicated to the Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin, though there’s a resonance of its pagan past in the Easter procession when a statue of the Virgin is immersed in the sea to bless the local sailors.
Above the village, tiny domed churches, some little bigger than beehives, pepper the hillsides, each one a filled with colourful frescoes like Byzantine jewel boxes. During a two hour walk we came across as many as seven. Some were still lit with the morning’s devotional candles, others were encrusted with silver icons; one was even being used as a part-time goat shed, but all were coloured with vivid devotion, nineteenth century faces gaily painted in where thirteenth century ones had worn away.
Time moves slowly in the Mani, planned journeys on the few and picturesque roads that wind along the coast and over the mountains soon dissipate if you stop for refreshment.
Even in the remotest taverna, one only has to sit at a table for a moment to find a carafe of wine placed before you, the owner sweeps to your table with a tray of his wife’s seasonal meze and the afternoon disappears in a delicious rosè-soaked woose
Perseverance is advised however, as the perilous road to the Inner Mani leads from the lush hill groves of Kardamili to a bleached splendour of rock and tower, and there are many nameless little beaches for a replenishing snorkel along the way.
Until recently many Mani villages could be reached only by sea or precipitous donkey tracks. This was due in part to the topography and poverty of the area but also a strategic defence against frequent coastline attacks from invading armies not to mention pirates. Over the centuries, their homes become increasingly like fortresses and as the population grew they turned in on themselves to fatal effect.
They are famed for their tower houses from which rival families shot each other with cannons in family vendettas that lasted generations. Shattered towers scatter the hilltops like miniature castles and the feeling of a shuttered inner-world remains in the crumbling hamlets, silent and brooding under the glare of the southern sun.
In Aeropolis, we chanced upon market day and found cafes filled with huge thick-thighed men in army fatigues looking hard and ready for a days hunting in the mountains. In ancient times much of this area fell under the city state of Sparta and it was not difficult to imagine these tough characters in leathers with spears by their sides instead of rifles. They slugged back liquor, railing against the injustices of municipal bureaucracy on the independent Maniot spirit, stopping, with disarming charm, for a genial inquisition of our morning travels before jumping into their pick ups with their snarling wolf-like dogs.
Nearby, Takis Taverna lies in a location reminiscent of a romantic film overlooking the Bay of Limeni. People drive from Athens just to come here for lunch and it is easy to see why as you sit on turquoise painted chairs surrounded by geraniums right on the waters edge.
Often, in a setting so perfect, the food is a disappointment but not so here. It is one of those restaurants you dream of finding in Greece. When we arrived fresh fish were still being gutted on steps leading to the water below us before being added to a vast and variegated array on a marble slab. We chose our fish, they were slapped on the coals and onto our plates. Families beside us tucked into heaped platters of lobster spaghetti but our straightforward meal of grilled bream, mountain greens and bottle of extremely palatable Greek wine will stay with me for years to come, for during our meal, just two feet from our table, swam a loggerhead turtle. A local celebrity, she comes every year to snap up the fish scraps amongst a shoal of goal-hanging fish.
After coffee, we dived from our chairs and swam with her in the broad blue bay.
Ant Egg Soup 