Gift Of The Greeks
In a remote corner of Greece’s Peloponnese region sits the Mani Peninsula, a beautiful slice of mountainous land surrounded by sparkling seas, and held in high regard by those lucky enough to discover it
In a far-flung corner of the Greek isles lurks the Mani Peninsula, a gloriously mountainous region surrounded by sparkling seas that, for at least one Brit, is well worth writing home about
There are few better places on Earth to be a cat than Mani. It’s unlikely the felines care much for the local myths or the views, but on this late summer evening in Kardamili, a footnote of a town on Greece’s southernmost appendage, the cats lounge nonchalantly on cafe steps and vacant chairs, picking at scraps left by a table of men gambling over cards and cups of wine.
It’s not a bad place to be a cyclist either. Yesterday I went on a brief recce, and within a few clicks from my guesthouse the glistening shoreline had given way to vast limestone cliffs interwoven with a fading tarmac ribbon that traced its way into the mountains. In 14km I’d gone from sea level to over 700m, and but for a puncture on the way down I wouldn’t have encountered a soul in two hours of riding. As it was, an angry hiss from my front wheel curtailed a highly enjoyable descent, and I was forced to stop by a small church, where I encountered Richard, a man of lithe but advancing years coming up the road on a Brompton.
Adhering to the cyclist scouts’ code, Richard pulled over to see if I was OK, and we struck up a conversation. He told me he was from Lancaster but lived on Mani years ago, and explained that until the 1980s there was no proper road connecting the top, which the Greek’s call Exo Mani (outer Mani) with the bottom, Mesa Mani (deep Mani). Instead, the locals had to take boats or ride down old farm tracks on mules.
Richard explained the road we were on was built to service the towns above it, and later another road was added along the coast to circumvent the need to wind through the mountainside to reach the peninsula’s lower regions. Our road became all but redundant, which made it superb for an ‘up and back before breakfast’ – something Richard had done every day of his holiday thus far.
‘And what brings you to Mani?’ he asked. I told him what I was doing, and that tomorrow I’d be tackling this road plus a further 145km, then writing about it. ‘Ah, so you must have heard of Patrick Leigh Fermor!’ Richard enthused. I confessed I hadn’t. ‘Well I’m sure they’ll tell you tomorrow,’ he said cheerily, before hopping back on his folding green steed.
Spartan riders
It’s 7.37am when I meet Yiannis Avrameas at his shop 2047m Kardamili Mountain Activities, named after the highest peak in the area, Mount Taygetus. I know this is the time because Yiannis curtly points out I am seven minutes late, which is apparently most unlike the English. He then offers me moussaka before descending into guffaws of laughter, which I surmise is at the irony of a local being the one to bring up social stereotypes, and at the idea of me carrying moussaka in my jersey pocket.
A broad, genial man with a sometimes serious face, in Yiannis I soon recognise the archetypal Maniot character. Like most of Greece this is a community that traces its origins back several millennia, with modern Maniots proudly claiming the Spartans as their forefathers. The land is stunning yet harsh, and its remoteness has made it a destination for refugees from all over Europe for centuries. The result, it occurs to me, is a curious mix of stoicism and dry wit underpinned with a gregarious, hospitable nature.
As if to prove this point, Yiannis slaps me jovially on the back, tells me he’s sorry but today he has to lead a hiking trip up Mount Taygetus,
Each hairpin offers views over glistening waters, and my nostrils fill with the bouquet of sage and oregano
and that he’ll leave me with his right hand man, Vangelis. Joining me on the ride will be Dimitris, an energetic-looking chap still in his teens who, I’m worried to hear, regularly rides up the climb I did yesterday on a 48x16t fixed gear. Later calculations reveal that’s 79 gear inches for Dimitris compared to my smallest – and well used – gear of 34. They did say they were descended from Spartans.
God and war
After a quick stop at the bakery to load fresh pastries into our pockets, we gingerly set off south out of Kardamili, letting our muscles gently warm to the slowly rising heat of the day. Vangelis is ahead in a clapped out VW Transporter he refers to as the ‘Adventure Bus’, which both thankfully and worryingly started third time this morning, and with him is Cyclist’s photographer, George.
Given my brief foray yesterday, the road is familiar, but the sights and smells are still beguilingly foreign. Each hairpin offers us a new view over glistening Mediterranean waters, and as we climb my nostrils fill with a bouquet of wild sage and oregano as the roadside flora relaxes its leaves in the sun.
The early Maniots, it turns out, were a pious bunch, so it was no surprise that I found myself stopped next to a church when I punctured yesterday. Winding through the village of Proastio, Dimitris informs me that there are 40 churches here – good ecumenical odds for a village with a population of just 364.
Proastio is one of the oldest villages in Mani, occupying a privileged spot protected by the sea to the south and the Taygetus Mountains to the north, which all but annex this region from mainland Greece. As such it was home to sailors (who often strayed into the piratical bracket), and being naturally superstitious folk they erected dedicated churches for themselves to help protect them spiritually, and presumably aid their absolution.
The 5% slopes tick by easily and, bar a wizened old lady who greets us with a friendly ‘ kalimera!’ (Greek for ‘good morning’) and an overly attentive dog that Dimitris greets with a jet of water from his bidon, the peninsula is the epitome of calm, a state only heightened when we crest the horseshoe road that partially snares the gorge below. A pair of buzzards circle, hundreds of metres from the gorge floor but at virtual eye level from our roadside view, and I’m suddenly embarrassed by the sound of my shifting Di2, amplified 10 times over by this natural amphitheatre, stinging the tranquility with every shift.
Pointing to a tall, crumbling stone building overlooking the gorge, Dimitris remarks
A few kilometres in we’re in trouble. With all the will in the world our bikes are no match for the terrain
that this is a traditional tower, or pyrgo, that belongs to a friend’s grandfather. It’s unoccupied now, but structures like these were once found all over Mani, and served as a kind of castle for powerful families. The taller your house, the more important you were, and God help anyone who built one taller than yours.
Such transgressions, along with feuds over land, livestock and marriages could often lead a family to launch a vendetta against a rival family, an act that dogged this area for centuries during the Ottoman era. The vendetta would be publically announced and its beginning signalled by the ringing of village bells, whereupon everyone not involved would lock themselves in their towers and wait for the end, which only came when one family had either been murdered or driven out of town.
Apparently vendettas could last for months, but there were breaks, known as treva, for those involved to go to church or tend to their olive groves, or for the locals to band together to fend off an external attack. So it wasn’t all bad. Unfortunately the same now can’t be said of the road surface.
When drawing up this route I’d been warned about a fire-road that went up and over the Taygetus mountains, but full of the joys of a gravel spring and knowing my Parlee Altum to share some considerable DNA with Parlee’s all-road Chebacco, I told Yiannis not to worry and to take me there anyway. However, a few kilometres in we’re in trouble. A recent storm has flayed the already broken road, scarring it with huge chunks of rock and fallen branches along with the usual scree, and with all the will in the world our bikes are no match for the terrain. I signal to Vangelis to stop the van ahead, and with a mixture of reluctance and relief, Dimitris and I load our bikes into the back of our temporary broomwagon.
This isn’t my finest hour, and no doubt there will be repercussions and ribbing when I get back to the Cyclist office, so I take solace in the rushing landscape as we bump our way through a forest of pine trees to the top.
Those at the top
Petrol-powered purgatory ends when the gravel road gives way to tarmac, and staring
down on us is the Moni Panagia Giatrissa, the monastery of the Healing Virgin, from whom I hope to extract some forgiveness. Its angular, white stuccoed walls and closed gates make it look like a condemned Bond-villain lair, but Vangelis assures me it is inhabited, and that the monks probably spend more time looking out than in, making this quite the des res. And indeed he’s right.
The views are as spectacular as they are far-reaching, on and on to the Messenian Gulf to the west and Mani’s interior to the south. Scattered through the gullies between the bumpy hills of the horizon nestle clusters of red-tiled houses, and whipping between them is a snake of grey that demarks our descent towards the east coast.
There’s something extraordinary about this area, an almost electric tang in the air from the dry heat
Once again there are warnings about the road surface, and this time I take heed, hanging back behind Dimitris and trying my best to follow his lines. Still, there are one or two skinprickling moments when negotiating a tractor – the first moving vehicle we’ve seen all day – followed by a gravel-strewn corner that has my rear wheel fishtailing momentarily, but by the time we reach the flattened roads near the coast I’ve long since forgotten my misdemeanours and near-misses.
Tapping along with Dimitris on my wheel – he having done his bit for the team descending – I’m considering whether or not the best may be behind us. The going is much busier, and except for a snake that writhes for a moment across the tarmac in front of us there’s little by way of interest to be found in the landscape. Still, there’s something extraordinary about this area, an almost electric tang in the air from the dry heat.
I’m busy mulling this over when Dimitris shouts that we make a smart left, and I snap back into reality. The road ducks behind a farm, winds on and then suddenly we’re back in adventuring mode. While elevation numbers remain low, the kilometres that follow prove a wonderfully undulating ride, the upward kicks sometimes
steep but never long, the gradient ebbing and flowing under our wheels, the rushing sights and smells as arresting as ever.
Harbouring dreams
We draw close to our scheduled stop in the fishing village of Limeni, which is tucked under the easterly knuckle of Mani’s finger-like contours. I’m reticent to stop given that I can see another climb across the bay that looks ripe for the attacking, but Vangelis and Dimitris both insist the delay will be worth it. Once again, they’re right.
The frappes we order up might be worth the sojourn alone, perspiring glasses of bitterly deep shots of espresso blitzed together with ice and sweetened milk. But it’s the view that has us ordering another round. Stone houses dot the curve of the bay, hewn into the rock and overlooking a sea that almost doesn’t look real. It’s so clear in parts that were it not it for the schooling fish and sun glinting off the surface you might assume the bay had been drained.
Tearing ourselves away from an afternoon in the sun is difficult, but the promise of a further climb topped off with a rolling road home is enticing enough, so with weary contentment I throw a leg over my top tube and race to catch up with Dimitris.
The climb out of Limeni has me looking backwards and sideways almost as much as it does ahead. If the sea was once clear it is has now been dyed a sparkling royal blue by the angle of the sun and our height above it.
It’s tough to imagine given the aching beauty below, but once upon a time blood was routinely spilled in bays like this. Travelling sailors would anchor up and come ashore in search of food, to be greeted by locals, dressed as priests, proffering bread and wine. More locals, this time dressed as Turks, would come down from the cliffside and kidnap the feasting sailors and hold them to ransom, signalled by a white flag in the sand and payable by the captain of the anchored vessel. The ‘priests’ would then act as brokers to the deal, commanding huge tips in the process, which they’d later split with their ‘Turkish’ friends. Thus no one ever thought to rumble the priests, and the only ire would be directed at the Turks, with whom the Grecian Maniots were perpetually at war.
Luckily for us no ambushes lie in wait, save for a few spikes that require concentration as they nudge into double figures. Otherwise our passage to the top is smooth and deserted, and there’s plenty of time to soak in the view.
Finally, the last sliver of sea disappears from the horizon and I’m left marvelling at the hardiness of the olive trees clinging to the cliffside and the strange quality of the sky. Wispy clouds have gathered over the lowering sun, the effect like a feather duvet draped over a flaming torch.
We pedal along the top of the ridge and glide down a series of open hairpins until we’re within spitting distance of the Ionian Sea once more. Glancing up I notice the faint edge of a mountain road and realise it’s the one on which I met Richard and his Brompton a day earlier, and it strikes me that I’ve forgotten to ask.
‘Who is Patrick Leigh Fermor?’ I ask Dimitris tentatively. ‘The famous English travel writer! I thought you were a journalist?’ replies Dimitris in a mocking tone. I try to nod knowingly in an attempt to cover my impoverished literary tracks. It’s not until I’m back in town later in the afternoon that I really understand. On the shelf of a souvenir shop, next to the cheaply printed T-shirts and fridge magnets is a stack of books, the most prominent of which is entitled Mani: Travels In The Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor. I flip through the pages and my eye is drawn to a passage:
‘On the map the southern part of the Peloponnese looks like a misshapen tooth
No ambushes lay in wait, save for a few spikes that require concentration as they nudge into double figures
Wispy clouds have gathered over the lowering sun, the effect like a feather duvet draped over a flaming torch
fresh torn from its gum with three peninsulas jutting southward in jagged and carious roots. The central prong is formed by the Taygetus mountains… which are roughly one hundred miles long… 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.’
Leigh Fermor, I discover, split the majority of his post-war years until his death in 2011 between a house here and one in Worcestershire, and in the process became one of the most celebrated travel authors of his generation (I’m learning). Still, I think even he would concede that no matter how good the prose, one really needs to step out – or for our purposes, pedal out – into the Mani to really understand why this place is so special, preferably repeating that process three, four or better still, 10 times over. Richard had the right idea. James Spender is Cyclist’s features editor and is building a healthy back catalogue of his own travel writing