Messinian Mani - Wild and beautiful where the mountain rushes down to meet the sea; decorated with clusters of traditional stone houses or towers among the rocky landscape dotted with olives trees. The coastline is rugged with pebbled beaches and coves with small colourful fishing habours where you can sit and relax sipping a glass of retsina or ouzo with a mezze while watching the locals go about their daily business. A 40 minute drive (approx.) from the main town of Kalamata should you need a dose of town life otherwise the area basically has it all; a good health centre and a new hypermarket and a good network of English speaking professionals.

Kalamata - capital of Messinia has all the amenities that a town requires with cultural events, a 3 screen cinema complex, theatres, library, a new hospital and a choice of supermarket chains and shops as well as a variety of societies and associations for a wide range of activities. There is also a Marina for people who have yatches

Messinia - is suitable for all tourism and life styles offering a good infrastructure and mild climate. It is rich in culture and history; providing its resident or visitor with a wealth of activities. The area has a new hospital, plans for 2 signature golf-courses and large tourist complex and a couple of marinas for yacht owners which are planned to operate in 2008. There is an airport which is approximately a 10-minute drive from Kalamata. The airport operates during the summer season only (May-October) with charter flights from the UK. There are no internal flights.


The Peloponnese is a large peninsula separated from the rest of Greece by the Gulf of Corinth. It is surrounded by the Ionian Sea on one side and the Aegean Sea on the other. The coastline is either rugged with steep cliffs leading to small coves and sparkling blue seas with pebbled beaches or sloping down to large expanses of sandy beach. The area is full of mountains with ravines, rivers, springs and caves decorated with pine, cypress and olive trees and in the spring time a blanket of aromatic wild flowers and mountain herbs. The fertile plains are full of citrus groves and vineyards.

 

It all started with the land. The red unpromising soil was sown with stones but it brought forth the gods, the heroes, the philosophers, the literature, the architecture and the art.
When you walk among the stones of Greece you experience that combination of light and water and earth that is the Greek landscape. No doubting Aristotle’s round world here. The stars envelope you like glittering diamonds . Awesome in their multitude.

The mighty Taygetos Mountain forms the spine of the Southern Peloponnese. Its mountainous massif begins in Arcadia
and its most impressive summits are in the Mani forming a natural protective barrier. The Maniates call it “the holy mountain” or “the masculine mountain”. Its highest peak dedicated to the God of the Sun Helios. (Apollo) . The Greeks call it the botanical paradise of Morea as 27 out of the 80 indigenous plants of Greece can be found on the Taygetos and 23 grow only on this mountain.

The Mani is pocketed with small villages connected by kaldereemia, old cobbled or paved donkey or mule tracks that were used before the roads were built. Donkeys and mules laden with olive branches still tread these well-worn pathways and new signposts have now been erected so that walkers can take a step back in time treading in the footsteps of those who walked along them in times gone by.

The charm of this beautiful but austere  landscape of Greece is its unceasing variety.  The eye is constantly surprised.  A track leading through a grove of  spectral olive trees may suddenly emerge on the edge of a cliff or cross a small stone bridge above
a breathtaking drop into a deep gorge.   Cypresses that look like candles, firs, myrtles and fig trees grow on  the mountainsides and in the spring  there are poppies like drops of blood and heather for the bees.  The villagers gather the mountain  herbs and boil them for food.  They search out the hives full of wild honey and cherish the family goat that produces milk for  feta cheese.   

The landscape of the Mani is not like any other and to discover
what is unique about this landscape  will reveal a great deal about the Maniates themselves.  Their formation of strongly knit family
clans feuding and fighting from  their fortified tower houses. 
Finally, uniting with ferocious  courage behind their motto
“Freedom or Death”.  Raising the flag at Kalamata  and leading the country towards  their common cause, to be rid of their Ottoman oppressors.  The landscape can be divided into three elements: water, land and light.  Natural springs are cherished  - initially dedicated to the worship of the pagan Gods. Villages grew up around them.  For village women the well  or spring is the centre of life. Every crumb of local gossip is shared there as they fill their water bottles.  At the end of Persephone’s dark months in Hades and as the dark funeral and bumblebee orchids begin to emerge they congregate around  the village spring A cacophony of shrill voices washing and scrubbing the winter rugs and blankets,  a social gathering, a celebration - from darkness into light.  Heralding the dawn of the newly  awakening spring and their release from winter monogamy accompanied  by the rush of the cold clear  spring hurtling down its mountainous course.  The men do their gossiping more  comfortably in the Kafeneion warmed by small cups of thick, black coffee, cigarette stubs in nicotine stained  fingers enveloped by the fug of cigarette smoke. 
Voices rising and falling – crescendo, allegro, pianissimo, problems, solutions,  history, the world – no subject unworthy of debate in their microcosmic  centre of the World.

The colours and shapes of the landscape are haunting and beguiling. This is truly the land of roaming spirits, lost but not forgotten ancient Gods. Their shapes, their hues, their essence roam freely catching you unawares as you turn a corner and the light falls on their forms. They’re in the twisted and gnarled olive trees and the limestone rocks as they tumble and fall creating new forms, new figures, new faces all changing with the light . The dusty brick red of the soil is everywhere, the bare dirt, the tiled roofs, and the dust on the hands of the farmers. The red earth held in the embrace of the sea makes the landscape unique. To the Greek peasant this red dry soil is the hard master from whom he must coax enough food to sustain life
However, it is the light of Greece, the Mani, the Peloponnese, which is its most enduring and dazzling feature. The blue, green, white, grey of the sea. The sky. Blood red sunsets in summer, soft pastels in autumn, ice blue and grey in winter turning to yellow and orange in spring and back to burning red in summer. The light strips things naked, revealing them to the eye with total honesty. A fisherman sitting on the sand mending his nets becomes, in the intoxicating light, all fishermen, The Fisherman. The Hibiscus, the Bougainvillea assault the eye as though it had never seen flowers before . The quality of this light tolerates no half tones, no secrets. It sets every object ablaze with significance. The ancient Greeks worshipped nature and found it natural to discover metaphysical meaning in the environment and to give objects physical form. Apollo the personification of light and learning. The two were one.

"It lies bathed in a light such as the eye has never seen
in which it rejoices as though now first awakening to the gift of sight.
This light is indescribably keen, yet soft
one can compare it to nothing except spirit "

Hugo Von Hofmannstal 1923

When I first came here an old Greek Shepherd asked me what I would say about this place so that people would want to come here. After three years of being here this is what I say to those who want to walk, to paint, to take photographs, to write to feel at one with nature. You will not discover the Mani on the beaches of Stoupa, beautiful as they are. You need to go up into the mountains , to tread the donkey paths, to paint in Kardamili, to attempt to capture the landscape, the light, to feel the beauty and spirituality of place. To engage and make contact with the spirits. "Hellas – A portrait of Greece "– Nicholas Cage