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In Which Venice Gets Some Serious Competition
September 24, 2008 by Mike
Kotronas
Route: Finikounta - Koroni - Kalamata - Kardamyli - Areopoli - Gerolimenas - Kokkinogia - Kotronas
Blimey, I wasn't expecting this. I could move here in a flash. Lost my heart. Bowled over. I've fallen in love. Not with a woman.. and not with a man.. but with the Mani. It's the middle of the three prongs that hang off the bottom of the Peloponnese like coat-tails. It's wild and rugged (and rainy and windy) with bad-ish roads over barren, bleak hillsides; ghost villages and olive trees and crashing surf and, everywhere, stone towers as old as time. It's empty and still and unique and I love it.
Look:
And the roads? Ooooooooooooh, the roads:
I mentioned the towers. The story goes that in times of old, the wild and rugged men of the Mani were caught up in blood feuds -- terrible vendettas that could span generations and set family against family. So dangerous was it, that the men of the peninsula locked themselves high in their great stone towers, while their womenfolk were out in the fields, harvesting olives and milking cows and, well, doing all the work.
I'm going out on a limb here, but I reckon the men invented the idea of the blood feud one night over a glass or three of ouzo. And it took the women a few centuries to suss them out.
I also think the men of the Mani will try to resume the 'blood feuds'.. just as soon as they get a decent broadband internet connection established in their towers.
And I can see myself joining them. WHAT a place to live.
The southernmost point of the Mani is also the southernmost point of mainland Greece but it feels *much* more remote than even that suggests. And yet it's a (long) day's ride from Athens. I could very well come back to the tiptop, hilltop, seaview, old stone village of Vathia to live in a tower. All I need is a woman to do all my work for me. Hmmmmm.
Did I mention, it's wild and rugged? I'm well aware it wouldn't appeal to everyone -- but I dare you to find someone with Norwegian blood in them who doesn't glow at a sight like this.. especially when they remember it has a Mediterranean climate!
--
These men are not modelling for a shorts catalogue:
They were on their way to Cape Tenaro, the southern tip of this southern land, having ridden to the northern, eastern and western extremities of Greece too. Clearly barking mad -- and excellent company. Follow their adventures on their blog provided you can read Greek. Colin?
--
Before I got to the Mani itself, I paid a flying visit to old Koroni. Another lovely town clinging to the waterfront in the rain. To the monastery of St John, which lies in the ruins of the town's old fortress -- it's full of nuns, not because the monks of the monastery wanted some female company, but because there is no word here for 'nunnery'. I think. Proof, in what appears to be their living quarters, that I was right yesterday to think I've arrived in Lilliput:
I suppose this is one way to keep me out of the nuns' bedroooms..
Even the local moggie was twice as big as the Monastery's church tower...
--
And in Kalamata, I spotted a Triumph dealer. Yes! Which makes the idea of living here even more appealing and plausible. I had a chat with the boss, a man with a keen understanding of the region and its history -- and the effect of socio-economic development on the sale (or otherwise) of his range of motorbikes. I'd have liked to stay longer -- but as I say every day now, I'm on a deadline for Saturday.
But I'll be back.
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By steve | September 29, 2008 9:45 PM
Stunning pictures again, Mike.
Oddly enough, I was in Norfolk on the bike last week, visiting friends in Sea Palling. What a beautiful part of the world, and thankfully blessed with what was almost mediterranean sunshine! It's a well-kept secret, the Far East of our country (well, it's a secret from those of us in the midlands anyway). Can't say the A14 or A11 match up with the roads you're travelling, but it's good to get out on the bike after a wet summer.
Safe riding
Steve