Off the Beaten Path, Gytheio, Greece

 

Southern Peloponnesus (from Wikimedia Commons)

Gytheio is a quintessential Greek fishing/commercial seaport, with a busy and active bund (if that term is appropriate to sea water), commercial buildings facing the sea, and people coming and going as they do their daily business.

According to Wikipedia,

Gytheio was the seaport of Ancient Sparta, which lies approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of it. It is the site of ancient Cranae, a tiny island where, according to the myth, Paris and Helen spent their first night together before departing for Troy.

Gytheio used to be an important port until it was destroyed in 4th century AD, possibly by an earthquake, though its strategic location continued to give it a significant role in Maniot history. Now the seat of the municipality of East Mani, Gytheio is the largest and most important town in Mani.

My daughter and I stayed a night after our long drive through the Mani (see the previous article). I cannot recall how we found a room or inn. Possibly we stopped at the first lit sign that said "Hotel."

A welcome evening arrival in Gytheio

Room with a view, morning in Gytheio

Greek seaports always have interesting architecture along the waterfront, old, new, restored, messy. 

The obligatory mellow Greek fishing boat picture (yes, it is a cliche)

The octopus fisherman

This gent was catching octopus off the seawall. While I was off looking for breakfast or a grocery, he caught one and offered to my daughter. Breakfast, perhaps?

Ah ha, the baker's truck. That suggests a bakery, coffee, and maybe juice nearby. You can't go wrong with the food in Greece.

We only stayed one night in Gytheio. I had been here before, but I can't remember exactly when. I probably have some Kodachrome slides of the town. We proceeded north to Sparta.

I took these photographs with a Sony DSC-W7 7-mpixel digital camera.  

The Mani - Where the Villagers Used to Shoot Each Other

The Mani peninsula, from Fermor (1958)

The Mani is the southernmost peninsula in the Peloponnese region of Greece. Even today, it is a rugged and lonely area, not commonly visited by tourists. Patrick Leigh Fermor described it in his 1958 book, Mani, Travels in the Southern Peloponnese:

On the map the southern part of the Peloponnese looks like a misshapen tooth fresh torn from its gum with three peninsulas jutting southwards in jagged and carious roots. The central prong is formed by the Tayegtus mountains, which from their northern foothills in the heart of the Morea to their storm-beaten southern point, Cape Matapan, are roughly a hundred miles long. About half their length - seventy five miles on their western and forty five on their eastern flank and measuring fifty miles across - projects tapering into the sea. This is the Mani.

As the Taygetus range towers to eight thousand feet at the centre , subsiding to north and south in chasm after chasm, these distances as the crow flies can with equanimity be trebled and quadrupled and sometimes, when reckoning overland, multiplied tenfold.

Just as the inland Taygetus divides the Messenian from the Laconian plain, its continuation, the sea-washed Mani, divides the Aegean from the Ionian, and its wild cape, the ancient Taenarus and the entrance to Hades, is the southernmost point of Greece.

Nothing but the bleak Mediterranean, sinking below to enormous depths, lies between this spike of rock and the African sands and from this point the huge wall of the Taygetus, whose highest peaks bar the bare and waterless inferno of rock.

My daughter and I drove around the Mani in 2005 (incidentally, just as Hurricane Katrina was nearing New Orleans).  We started on the west side in Kalamata, a bustling commercial city with excellent restaurants (well, that is common for most of Greece). We drove south on the twisty road on the west coast of the Mani, crossed over to the east near the southern tip, and proceeded north to the small port of Gytheio. The photos below are in geographic order of our drive.

Bougainvillea and traditional architecture, Kardamyli

Near Kalamata, towns like Kardamyli have numerous small hotels and tourist facilities. Google Street View shows much more tourist infrastructure now than during our 2005 drive.

Agios Nikolaos, with olive cultivation

Neo Itilo

Heading south, the towns get smaller. There is more tourist development now, but it is still a quiet area. From the green, you can see that this area has reasonable rainfall at least part of the year.

Unnamed ruins west of Vatheia

Southern Mani north of Cape Tainaron (also called Cape Matapan)

Unoccupied village west of Vatheia

The southernmost half of the Mani is bleak and rocky. This is where you find the characteristic Mani villages with their stone houses and towers. The towers served as lookouts and as safe storage, probably for food. And during feuds, the villagers shot at each other.

These Mani villages were far from the sea up the hillsides. Before the era of roads, they were safe from pirates and pillaging navies. During the Ottoman era, the Mani was left largely alone and remained Greek. Ottoman soldiers could have probably dominated this chunk of Greece, but the cost would have been high, and the Ottoman viceroys recognized that there would be little tax revenue to extract from the impoverished villages.

The Mani villagers may have also been pirates, because agriculture must have been difficult and not very productive. They raided ships and then retreated to their high stone villages. 

My father was a hydraulic engineer. Whenever we saw bleak rocky towns like this in Greece, Anatolia, or Pakistan, he always asked, "Where did these people get their water?" They certainly did not consume water the way we modern suburbanites do, but still, they needed some supply for drinking and limited irrigation. These Mani ruins did not appear to be situated near stream beds. Possibly rainfall was slightly greater in the medieval era, but I am still baffled by the water situation. 

(In the 1970s, I remember my dad asking where the US Southwest would secure adequate water. Fifty years later, his concerns are playing out.) 

In the three photograph above you can see remnants of stone walls. These would have marked small farm fields. Now, they are abandoned and have been taken over by cacti. Was there a small amount of humis left over from when villagers grew crops, giving the cacti just enough nutrients to thrive? Even olive trees are missing here.  

Vatheia

Vatheia has become a tourist destination, with restored towers converted into bed and breakfasts. It is a bit of a drive from Athens, but certainly would be peaceful. Where do they get their water? Does it come by tanker truck?

Porto Kaglio

At the end of a twisty narrow road (but fully paved), Porto Kaglio is on the east coast of the Mani.  This was as far south as we ventured. Note the stone ruins on the hill above the present village. Even in 2005, some city residents had summer homes in these little towns. Possibly they come here by boat.

Fixer-upper house, Lagia

Heading north, the road continues through barren terrain of the southern Mani and through a slightly larger town, Lagia. The road it descends to the sea near Kokkala and continues northeast towards the mainland of the Peloponneses. 

Graveyard, near Gytheio

Lady tending a grave, Gytheio

We arrived in the little seaport of Gytheio, tired, windblown, vibrated, and a bit sunburned. It was a long day. But truly, the Mani deserves a few days to explore, especially if you want to do some serious photography. Black and white film would be most suitable here. 

I took these photographs with a Sony DSC-W7 digital camera. It was my first digital unit and worked very well until it finally developed an electronic fault. It was "only" 7 megapixels, but I was able to print some very nice 11×14" prints from those files. 

Olympia Harbor Days 2024 (Oly 14)

Percival Landing, West Bay, Olympia

Olympians love their boats! and they seriously celebrate holidays, events, and themes. Olympia Harbor Days is a waterfront fête with vintage tugboats, foods, harbor tours, and children's booths. As the official web page states: 

"The Olympia Harbor Days Festival, a free event offered every Labor Day Weekend, is an award winning free and family friendly event that showcases many of the vintage tugboats of the Puget Sound with a walk aboard show at the docks and races in the bay.  Visitors to the event may also find tall ships, steamships, other historic vessels of twentieth century commerce, tribal canoes, and current recreational small watercraft.  Harbor crises and sailings on Budd Bay are also offered.

On land, festival attendees enjoy great food, great music, great artisans, plus nautical and marine themed attractions, and hands on activities, including Olympia’s tugboat heritage, tribal history and the working waterfront with Port of Olympia tours.  All in all, here are over 300 things to do and see." 

World War II era US Navy rescue tug, Comanche, later US Coast Guard 

The Comanche is a sturdy old navy tug, launched in 1943. I want onboard before the start of Harbor Days and spent an hour listening to two former crewmen relate stories. This old-timer needs a lot of maintenance and overhauling. It was powerful enough to tow aircraft carriers.

The big draw of Harbor Days is the famous tugboat race. This begins on Sunday with a processions of the tugs out of Percival Landing. The procession seemed a bit ad hoc, more like an occasional tug chugging north into West Bay. The actual race was too far north for us to see. 

Tug R. W. Confer

The R. W. Confer, built in 1930 in Portland, Oregon, towed logs on the Columbia River for 70 years.

  

Tug Chippewa 

This is a gorgeous restoration of a 1943 wooden tug. Tug Chippewa was built in Seattle and originally served as a Navy tug during WWII, patrolling Puget Sound. The Foss company later used it for service between Seattle and Alaska.

TugZilla, small but mighty

The tugs came from different original work environments, such as Puget Sound and the Colombia River. The Comanche, above, was ocean-going and operated on the Atlantic Coast as well as across the Pacific. Maintaining one of these old work boats is a serious financial commitment.

The Duplo marine engineer

Yacht skippers

Remote control sailing is a popular activity here. I see a group at Swantown Marine every Sunday. 

 

The Saga Beija Flor unloaded tons of Brazilian eucalyptus pulp paper for use by American paper companies to convert into toilet paper and paper towels. Your joy roll might have come from this vessel. The Port of Olympia offered walking tours of the secure area of the Port. This is a deep draft harbor, but the next dredging will be postponed until the City of Olympia addresses the contaminated sediment (much of it from creosote operations that extended over a hundred years). I took some Rolleiflex film pictures in the secure area, which you will see in the future.

These photographs are from my Fuji X-E1 digital camera with the 18-55mm Fuji lens. I use the Astia simulation. This is an "old" digital camera on current standards, but I seldom use it and have not seen a need to change it. 

At the BNSF Rail Yard, Tacoma, Washington

 Railroad photography is always interesting if you like industrial/infrastructure/machinery topics. There are so many shapes, patterns, and details to record. Your eye can wander around the scene and seldom run out of new details. 

Most rail yards today are off limits to casual visitors. This is true for the large BNSF rail and off Puyallup Avenue in the Port of Tacoma. However, East D Street, just east of the Foss Waterway, has an overpass with a pedestrian sidewalk! That was too good to resist. On a May day with interesting clouds, I parked nearby and walked along the overpass with my camera and a tripod. The roadway vibrated when a truck rumbled by, so I waited for a quiet period. These frames are 2400 pixels wide, so click to see more details.

Turntable, BNSF rail yard, Tacoma

Years ago, there was probably a roundhouse here, where steam locomotives would have been repaired and readied for duty. Turntables were necessary to spin steam locomotives because they did not run in reverse efficiently. Modern diesel locomotives can run in either direction.

Buildings in background are Tacoma Dome parking garages (Panatomic-X film, med. yellow filter)

Signal equipment

South side of rail yard from East E Street (Tri-X 400 film)

Train moving around south end of Foss Waterway en route somewhere south

Tracks below downtown Tacoma parallel to Dock Street (Kodak T400CN film, Leica IIIC, 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, med yellow filter)

I took most of these pictures on Kodak Panatomic-X or Tri-X 400 film with my Fuji GW690II camera (the "Texas Leica"), with its EBC Fujinon 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens. This 5-element lens has amazing resolution. I bought the camera in 1992 and have used it irregularly over the decades. It is a big package to take on an air trip but is fine for car travel. I expose the Panatomic-X at EI=25, which normally requires a tripod. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film.