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.