Tower Living

Leaving the Deep Mani the road winds up the Messinian Coast towards the port of Kalamata, but before we get there a few impressive climbs stand in our way. The town of Kardamyli also stands in our way at the base of the first 12km climb to Kambos. Last year we had some of our best swims in the warm Ionian sea that laps the shores of Kardamyli. So we take a break to relax a bit before our final climb away from stark and dramatic Mani. The last of the impressive tower settlements on our route has been nicely preserved here. Tourists can freely ramble around the grounds of the old Troupakides-Mourtzinoi tower complex imagining what life must have been like trapped in this self-sufficient fortress. I ponder Mani tower life and then go for a swim

Unforgiving Mani

Unforgiving Mani is described as being at the height of it's beauty when cold winter winds howl through it's barren tower settlements sounding the forgotten song of melancholic byzantine church bells. Many of these medieval gems contain frescos many centuries old that still cling hapazardly to their neglected walls.

Love and Beauty

Skirting the most intense of the Mani we found ourselves in the Port of Gythio where one of western history's most famous love affairs of all time began. It was here that Paris and Helen first cultivated their tryst that eventually launched history into the epic Trojan War. Gentle and pretty Gythio must have been a more romantic place in it's day, but it is also a good jumping of point for Kythyria legendary birthplace of Aphrodite goddess of love and beauty.

Manic for the Mani

Where does a Spartan go when his empire has fallen and he simply can and will not submit to foreign masters? Why over the Taygetos into the Mani - the most formidable, dry and wild and unwanted mountains of course! Wouldn't you? The coastline which plunges harshly off the skirts of these mountains doesn't give much reprieve either. Agriculture is pretty dismal in this region. A few scraggly olives and figs is about all it can muster. However, this was enough for the scene of some epic feuds whose reputation was enough to encourage any would be conquerers to leave these wild and tenacious people entirely alone.

The bitter and bloody clan wars of the 17th century into the time of Greek Independance have left the dry and scrubby Mani landscape studded with equally stark and very distinctive tower settlements used as refuges in times of trouble. The Maniots, as these former Spartans came to be known, lived in clans governed by chieftains and their own code of law. Their fierce resentment of any outside attempt to govern them is perhaps what gave birth to our modern word "mania".

I must admit that the startlingly barren landscapes of the Mani combined with an unusually warm sea have a strangely magnetic appeal. One that will bring us back to explore this area in more detail, hopefully in the spring when the wildflowers are at their most spectacular.