Part I: From a grounded shipwreck to empty mountain towers
Tuesday May 15, 2018: Athens-Sparta-Gytheion-Kita-Gerolimenas-Vathia
Day one of the trip to Mani, taken up with the drive from Athens to Inner Mani with a few hours in the afternoon left for some local sightseeing.
Getting to inner Mani is surely very much easier nowadays than when PLF attempted the same trip in the mid-50's. Driving from Athens to Kita was mostly on dual carriageway which makes the journey easy, safe and relatively pleasurable. In recent years the dual carriageway was extended from the city of Tripoli to the city of Sparti. From then on to Gytheion and across the mountains to Areopolis, although not as modern a road, it nevertheless makes for a comfortable drive.
Gytheion, by the sea, was a welcome stop before entering the mountainous area. Sitting on the sea front just opposite a tiny extension of the mainland, connected by a narrow pathway, but which the locals call "small island of Kranai" , I am told by the waiter that it was the place where, according to the Ancient Greek traveller and writer Pausanias, Paris and Helen spent their first night after they ran away from the court of king Menelaus to Troy.
A view of the island of Kranai from the port of Gytheion
There is a small museum on the island but it was closed. There are also a couple of houses where people went about their usual businesses.
A local lady on Kranai island drying out her rugs
Looking across from Gytheion harbour I could make out the silhouette of a ship whose position looked very strange, being far too close to land. On enquiring about it I am told that it is a shipwreck that has been grounded on a nearby sandy beach since 1982. Rumour has it that the ship, named Demetrios, was carrying drugs and when the crew realised that the Coast Guards were aware of its cargo and waited for them, the entire crew abandoned the ship resulting in the ship eventually drifting on the sandy beach. There are some other explanations and probably only very few people know the real cause. I felt that it was worth driving just to the other side of town to see it for myself.
The shipwreck from high up on the road leading to it
The shipwreck from close up
Entering Mani one realises that the Maniots have always had and continue to have a collective sense of national pride. They are very proud of the role that Maniots played in the war of independence from the Ottoman empire during the 1820's. Many monuments erected in towns, the proliferation of Greek flags and even graffiti attest to their continuing devotion to their patriotic beliefs.
Proclaiming one's political allegiance
Arriving at inner Mani one is stricken by the rough and barren mountains that dominate the skyline and which they reach all the way to the sea on both sides of the peninsula. There are tall buildings, the typical Maniot architecture, towers that are either dotted on the landscape or they are grouped into small villages. Some of these buildings are destroyed whilst others have been or are in the process of being repaired. One village that typifies Maniot villages is that of Vathia which is almost abandoned. It is not a big village but it sits on top of a hill about 800 metres above the sea with views to the sea on one side and the high mountains behind it on the other. One can just imagine how inaccessible this village and others just like it were before modern roads made it easy for us to approach it, but at the same time one relaises that this remoteness offered protection from intruders and enemies.
A view of Vathia from a road higher up
A view across the sea from Vathia
A view towards the mountains at the back of Vathia
Walking around at Vathia one is overwhelmed by the absence of any people, of any human activity at all. There was some evidence of some repair work under way but late in the afternoon there was no one around. The cobbled streets (Kalderrimia) were no doubt in the same state as when the village was at its prime a couple of hundred years ago.
Around Vathia
The majority of houses, the tall towers, are either destroyed or in a dire condition and in urgent need for repair. Some have their windows and doors open as if their occupants left recently in a hurry.
A view form the window
Inside one of the towers in Vathia
Although many of the old towers are destroyed, or abandoned or just beginning to be renovated, their importance to Maniot way of life cannot be overstated. The celebrated travel writer William Dalrymple describes the role of the towers in the Financial Times, on 28 August 2015, thus:
"To my surprise, the more I walked in the cactus-haunted hills, through spires of yellow verbascum and the seed heads of dried grasses as straight as miniature cedar trees, the more I found that the wildness of the Mani reminded me less of the bucolic Mediterranean than the bleakly beautiful mountains of the north-west frontier of Pakistan. For both the turbulent Maniots and the Pashtuns have an ancient tradition of blood feuds, which has led them to live in the fortified towers that are still the dominant architectural feature of their regions. In both, every man is a chieftain, and every farm a fort." [Excerpt From: Walks amid the watchtowers of the Mani, Financial Times, August 28, 2015].