October comes and we fly out of Kalamata International – one of the smallest airports I have passed through outside upcountry Zambia. It has been too brief a trip, and every day for seven days I have spent much time watching the mountains of the Mani peninsula across the Gulf. They are the southern spine of the Taygetos Massif, a range some 100 kilometres long that runs the length of the third, and easterly finger of the Peloponnese.
With all the looking, I have tried to penetrate this fortress-land of faulted scarps and scattered habitation – at least in some sense. And in hopes of admission to the interior, the provision of a path that I might follow, I’ve been reading Patrick Leigh Fermor’s 1950s book Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese. It was written before the road was built down the peninsula, and much of the excursion involved hard hiking and catching boats from cape to cape.
But sad to say, despite high hopes, the book is not really helping. I am still ploughing through it a good three weeks later in windblown Shropshire, the leaves of ash trees dashing by the windows like fleets of unleashed arrows. Yet it is true the narrative sets off with an actual journey into the far-flung quarters of the Deep Mani. It is true, too, that along the way Leigh Fermor conjures scenes of ravishing detail. And conjures is the only word for it. But the problem is his accounts of meetings with the Maniates in remote and rocky fastnesses – often preternatural in the beauty of their evocation – are too brief and too soon abandoned for lengthy meanders into arcane matters relating to quite other parts of Greece and its history. There is too much mention of obscure tribes, too many catalogues of unfamiliar names detached from context in time or space.
The book, then, rather than admitting me, mostly keeps me at bay. I’m not in the mood for ponderings on how the pantheon of Greek deities, serially dealt with one by one, have been repackaged as Christian saints. This reconfiguration is not an especially Greek phenomenon anyway. Tell me more of the journey through this iron-hard land, Leigh Fermor. Give me more of your magic.
To be fair, near the start of the book there is the extraordinary history of the Mani village blood feuds – a pathological phase wherein the breeding of sons, referred to as ‘guns’, to wield long-barrelled rifles against neighbour-enemies, was a community fixation; this along with the building of ever taller stone towers from which to lay siege across small village squares. Settlements bristled with these structures many storeys high. Rocks and cannon balls were hurled from their parapets on to the roofs of opposing families’ homes, causing the usual activities of village life to be suspended during daylight hours for fear of being shot or flattened.
Sometimes the feuds went on for generations. Even the local priests were involved, and mid-worship kept their rifles to hand. Meanwhile the womenfolk, the breeders of guns, extemporized long poetic dirges for the dead. And if this were not enough, in between the feuding there was piracy and slave trading, and oh yes, some farming, fishing and salt panning.
Then it seems the Maniates got a grip, stopped stoking local enmities and became prime movers in the 1821 Revolution so ending 350 years of Turkish domination of Greece and thereby setting the scene for a unified nation state. But then, having done this, it appears they reverted to bloody-minded type and became a troublesome thorn in the side of the new political entity.
If ever a people were bred of their terrain, then it must surely be the Maniates – tough, unyielding, unforgiving and, in their own particular way, magnificent. They inhabit territory that Homer knew, a land where gods and heroes walked, a place of resort for besieged ancient Mycenaeans, a place of disposal for the classical Spartans who took wrong-doers there to throw them down chasms and left sickly babes to die on hillsides.
And then the Mani boasts not one, but two entrances to the Underworld: in the labyrinthine caves of Diros in the north-west and at the southernmost tip of its tailbone at Cape Matapan where, guided by Athena and Hermes, Heracles descended to capture Cerberus, the monstrous ‘hound of Hades’.
Now that I am on the last lap with Leigh Fermor, I know I should not be too cross with him. In his stride he is a wonderful writer, and I treasure those transient episodes that let me meet the girl Vasilio, dine and sleep atop an old Mani village tower, quaff ouzo all but frozen from a mountain stream, walk into a desolate village and encounter astonishing hospitality. Such moments are breath-taking. Dream-like. But as for the rest…I read recently that the writer admitted to a friend that he did not know much about the Mani, and used the trip and the book as a peg on which to hang several unrelated topics that had long interested him. There is no doubting his deep regard for Greece and its peoples.
But now I am left in rainy, autumnal Shropshire with my outsider views of the western Taygetos. I have learned from other reading that this side of the peninsula is known as the Shadowy or Dark Mani because it receives little of the morning sun.
My photo at the head of this post suggests other singular effects of locality. I was standing in the sea when I took it. Later when I looked at the result on screen I found that the only way to reveal any detail of the mountains was to darken the foreground. The more I did that, the more they emerged. It is a very odd photograph: as if two separate views have been spliced together. It is also hard to fathom the perspective. The mountains are two-dimensional, near and distant views almost occupying a single plane. In the midday light the scene looks like a mirage. Or there again like the film in a soap bubble just before it bursts; a negative not quite developed.
At other times of the day – at dawn and dusk, the peninsula solidifies flatly; a woodcut; or a paper chain of tumbled rhomboids; cardboard cut-outs. Often there is a train of frothy cloud overhead. It looks like whipped meringue.
Another thought then. In my larder cupboard I have a jar of capers bathed in Mani olive oil, yet bought in my sister’s shop in Shropshire. I also have a jar of Mani honey, said to be the best in the region, created by bees who have foraged among the mountain flowers, and bought by G. in a shop on Koroni’s opposing Peloponnesian peninsula. As yet I have opened neither – because another thought is brewing: to go to the Mani. Perhaps in springtime. Find out for myself what lies within.
copyright 2017 Tish Farrell
The Changing Seasons: Please visit Max to see this month’s fabulous photo gallery
Tish Farrell 
It is always a joy to “travel” with someone else. You photos are delightful.
Glad you could come with me, bc.
A beautiful slide show, Tish, and the post itself shows your command of language to evoke. I really enjoyed the slide show as well. What grabbed me immediately was the seeming contrast of people relaxing in the water and the mountains in the background. It felt as though it should be too cold for swimming, but of course, it wasn’t.
janet
Many thanks, Janet. Actually it wasn’t very warm – took ages to pluck up courage to submerge.
Enjoyed your interpretations of your images and how you see the world.
Many thanks 🙂
Appreciated a lot your post!
always learn so much through your read and the pics are magnificent….
Thanks for your explanation on the first photo , effectively it looks quite unreal!
Love this share!
Grazie, Anna 🙂
That was a very pleasant ten minutes well spent!
I know you say you were standing in the sea when you took the shot but it looks as if it might be you in the water ( on the right)?
And it is a marvelous capture.
My sister – so well spotted, though in reality we’re not very alike as to features. People just think we are.
Well, bearing in mind I am so often as blind as a bat there must be some likeness for me to spot!
You spotted well 🙂
I thought that too, but then figured it must be Tish’s sister. I see her answer to you confirms that.
Another good spotter 🙂
Jambo Memsahib. Just browsed through your Greek posts. I thought when I saw the first shot that the water looked very cold… 🙂 But then the Mediterranean has always felt cold to me)
Looks like you enjoyed yourselves thoroughly. Happy for that.
Kwaheri sassa.
I was surprised how cool the water was, more like Welsh summer sea (on a good day that is). Hope you are well, Brian.
Can’t even begin to fathom the temperature of a Welsh summer sea… 😉
Hope you are well too. We are… struggling. 🙂
And going to Asia the whole family, to reunite with daughter #2. That will be in December. Look forward to it.
That sounds like a wonderful trip. Safari njema!
Asante sana
Tish – having the slideshow at the very end was significant for me- I was chewing on what you wrote and then ending with the photos was like closure and a quiet summary.
and loved your thoughts along the way – “give me more of your magic” and just how you shared the process – and fav takeaway here was
“I read recently that the writer admitted to a friend that he did not know much about the Mani, and used the trip and the book as a peg on which to hang several unrelated topics that had long interested him.”
I learned something through this – like I guess many authors might do this – and can see there are pros and cons – maybe more cons in some cases??
Hi there, Yvette. Digressions are fine if they are well timed, both in length and where they crop up. In fact they can be very useful to give a sense of time passing, especially between one place and another, but they do need throw light on the main path in some way, add to the experience, be well crafted. Otherwise, whatever it is might be better dealt with in a series of essays as part of an anthology with some over-arching theme.
oh that makes sense and I read somehwere where someone said not every great idea can or should be forced into a book…
and reading this makes sense:
“might be better dealt with in a series of essays as part of an anthology with some over-arching theme”
hmmmm
Glad to throw some notions into the creative pot, Yvette. I mean there really no absolute rules, but if you do go off at tangent, it needs to be done with a heck of a lot of style that takes the readers with you.
That makes sense !
PEROULIA has given you (and us) many an interesting post and it appears to have whetted your appetite for a return to the region. Good for you on reading through the book, I’m afraid now if I find a book too hard going I abandon it.
I was reading it on my kindle, so eventually I just whizzed through the meanders until I reached a para that took me back to the Mani. But like you, I am much more ready to abandon a book if it’s not hitting the spot.
Beautiful!
Thank you, Kendall.
Welcome!
An insight into an area I never knew existed. I was absorbed into their world of violence and enmity by this post Tish. I can feel your yearning to revisit. The slide show was a delight, a visual finish to your 7 days. Now you will be back to composting all those leaves that fell whilst you were away???
Oh yes, have been doing mega-composting work since I got back. I have heaps all over the allotment, but have yet to have a concentrated leaf gathering. My last year’s ones are rotting down nicely, but not quite ‘done’ yet. Ready for spring maybe 🙂
🍂🍁🎨
You have the oil and the honey, but no figs, so I think you will have to return. 😉 Besides I would like to read Tish’s account of the Mani. I haven’t read any of Leigh Fermor’s books. Have you read any of his other works? By the way, the sea in your first photo reminds me of the deep blue of the Red Sea.
Ah yes, those figs. I’d never had a ‘real’ one before this trip. There’s quite a Leigh Fermor cult, but I’m not sure I’d rush to read more – his earliest perhaps. I gather he was a larger than life character, described as a true buccaneer by those who knew him. He later had a house in the Messenian Mani, now being turned into some kind of museum. Our Peroulia hosts had visited it when it was completely empty and told us it was very lovely. But now you have me thinking of the Red Sea 🙂
I must ask my daughter if she has read any Leigh Fermor. She is a Greek geek. As for the Red Sea, this was one of my favourite places and the photo does a fairly good job of depicting the blue of the Red Sea. https://www.movenpick.com/en/africa/egypt/el-quseir/resort-el-quseir/overview/
Such wonderful blues – aqua- and ultramarine.
Surprisingly, my daughter hadn’t heard of Fermor. I have given her something to think about!
Always nice to be able reveal unknown territories to a seasoned traveller 🙂
Thank you for sharing your thought on your reading, Tish!
These photos are just remarkably beautiful. 🙂
Many thanks for your generous comments, Amy 🙂
I like the photos Tish. Very nice scenery.