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Stoupa beach in the Mani

THE Hollywood movie Before Midnight is now doing the rounds with mixed reviews, but one aspect is indisputable – the real star of the piece is the southern Peloponnese.

Focus on this wonderful region of Greece has been long overdue. Having spent three years living in the Mani region (situated in the middle of the three peninsulas), I can vouch for its beauty and real authenticity.

From my experience there, I have drawn up a list of some favourite places to visit, mostly in the Mani. The recommendations for tavernas and other businesses are based on my personal taste alone. Come to the region one day so you can draw up your own list of favourites.

Hillside village of Megali Mantineia

* BEST HILL VILLAGE: Megali Mantineia, in north Mani.

There are many lovely rural villages in the southern Peloponnese but this is my favourite, partly because my partner Jim and I, and our mad Jack Russell dog Wallace, spent the first year of our Greek adventure here and it was the inspiration for my book Things Can Only Get Feta. It’s a short drive from popular Santova beach and nestles on a quiet hillside beneath the north Taygetos Mountains. It’s an unspoilt village with a tight-knit community where most people work as goat farmers or harvest olives.

Unusually for a rural village, there are four very good family-run tavernas here offering traditional dishes. The Lofos (27210 58630), with its vast terrace overlooking the Messinian gulf is on the drive up from the sea; Iliovasilema, or more commonly called Yioryia’s after the owner’s wife (27210 58660), and nearby Sotiris Taverna (27210 58191); Anavriti Taverna (27210 58062), behind the main church, and the Kali Kardia kafeneion in the heart of the village (27210 58306).

Dining experience in Kardamili

* BEST COASTAL VILLAGE: Kardamili

Kardamili is an hour’s drive from Kalamata and is the village where some of Before Midnight was filmed. It has a nice old harbour and pebble beaches. The Taygetos mountains form a picturesque backdrop and there is an historic area with traditional Maniot tower houses. From the village are good walking tracks up to the villages behind, like Agia Sophia and Petrovouni. The late Patrick Leigh Fermor’s house is situated at the southern end beside Kalamitsi beach, with excellent swimming and snorkelling.

Favourite walk: from the old town up to Agia Sophia. Favourite taverna: Hariloas (27210 73373), by the harbour, for its charming owner Maria, and the food, of course. Try the doorstep-sized moussaka, always freshly baked.

Favourite shop: The Bead Shop on the main street of Kardamili (693 9455 365), run by Gill Rochelle. This is a treasure trove of unusual handmade jewellery and a trillion fab beads if you want to get creative while on holiday and make your own. Gill is also very knowledgeable about this area.

Kalogria beach with the house of George Zorbas

* BEST LITERARY CONNECTION: Kalogria beach

Ten minutes further south from Kardamili is the sheltered sandy cove where much of the book Zorba the Greek was conceptualised. Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis spent some time here with the real George Zorbas when they were running a lignite mine nearby (see earlier blog post in November for more details). The beach here, where the writer lived in a wooden hut, now demolished, was also the inspiration for the scene in the book where Zorba teaches the narrator to dance the sirtaki. Stoupa is a close second, a long sandy beach nearby with a good selection of tavernas.

Altomira village in the Taygetos mountains

* BEST LOFTY VILLAGE: Altomira

This is a fabulous village in north Mani at nearly 3,000 ft with a stunning view towards Profitis Ilias, the highest peak in the Taygetos range. The village is partially in ruins, though many Greeks are buying houses and renovating them for summer holidays. The best approach is from the main Kalamata to Stoupa road with the turn-off to Sotirianika, and a 4×4 is recommended.

If you’re a fit, keen walker, there is an old stone kalderimi (donkey track), called the Biliova, from Sotirianika up the side of a hill that will lead you to the village, with great views. You will need to get hold of a local walking map.

Near the Cave of Hades, Cape Tainaron

* BEST SPOOKY SITE: The Cave of Hades

This is situated on Cape Tainaron at the tip of the Mani peninsula. From the end of the road, at the car park, you take the path down to a nearby cove and the cave is behind a high rocky outcrop, covered by bushes. This is the doorway to the Underworld mentioned by ancient writers and scholars. The place where Hercules performed his 12^th labour, dragging out the three-headed dog Cerberus. From here there is a path to some ancient Roman ruins with mosaics and further on is the lighthouse on the southernmost point of Greece.

Favourite taverna: This is on the road down to the fascinating town of Areopolis, and the Cape, at wide Limeni Bay near Otylo. Takis Taverna (27330 51327) is right by the water where fishing boats pull in and land the day’s catch.

Stunning Voidokoilia beach

* BEST BEACH: Voidokoilia

Apart from the long peaceful Santova beach in the Mani, the most perfect, photogenic beach is Voidokoilia, near Navarino Bay on the Messinian peninsula (left-hand prong). Shaped like the Greek letter omega Ω, it has two headlands, one with a ruined Frankish castle on top. The sand here is soft and the water pale and silky. There is nothing much here apart from the beach, so head back towards Pylos town to the fishing village of Yialova with its own sandy beach and a row of nice tavernas and cafes by the water.

View across Kalamata city centre

* BEST CITY: Kalamata

Okay, it’s the only city of the southern Peloponnese, but as Greek cities go, this one is very appealing. Set at the head of the Messinian Gulf, it has the lot: a long clean city beach; history (the historic centre, Frankish castle, cathedral and archaeological museum); a vibrant café scene along Navarino Street; a bustling marina with a selection of tavernas.

Favourite tavernas: Koilakos for fish, especially calamari and grilled octopus, Navarinou St, 12, (27210 22016); the Argo, Salaminos St 52, (27210 25380). Favourite dish, grilled sardines. The other dish is the lovely Adonis, a very entertaining waiter, and a city celebrity. Ta Rolla, Sparta St, 53 (27210 26218). An old-style taverna in the market area of the city with wine barrels full of a lovely local brew and specialties like bean soup and stuffed tomatoes.

Best monastery/silk workshop in Kalamata:

Head to the 18^th century Kalograion (Nuns’) Monastery in Mystra Street (near the Ypapanti Cathedral). Once internationally famous for its silk products, made at the monastery by the nuns, it still produces many lovely items in-house though the nuns number only a couple of dozen these days. The shop here stocks unique hand-printed scarves, embroideries, as well as small icons and religious books.

This is an oasis of calm in the city with a courtyard shaded by orange trees and two small churches. Later, head to the Ypapanti Cathedral to see the ‘miraculous’ icon of the Panagia (Virgin Mary) saved from a fire in the 19^th century during a skirmish with the Turks, and the patroness of this city.

Other places to visit in the southern Peloponnese: the archaeological site of Ancient Messene, north-west of Kalamata, close to the village of Mavromati; Nestor’s Palace, one of the finest Mycenaean sites in southern Greece, near Pylos. The twin “eyes of the Venetian empire” Koroni and sprawling Methoni castles at the tip of the Messinian peninsula; lastly, Monemvasia, Greece’s “rock of Gibraltar” in the Laconian peninsula.

For more information about what to see and do in the southern Peloponnese go to our home page on www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or visit www.mythicalpeloponnese.gr run by the Greek National Tourist Board. A great site for walking tracks in the Mani and other information: www.insidemani.gr

Marjory and Wallace with the new book

A book about living in Greece

For more details about my book, Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene Factum Publishing, London) based on three years living in the Mani, southern Greece during the crisis, visit my website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or visit Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

To read my recent story in The Scotsman newspaper about the southern Peloponnese please click on the following link: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/features/travel-mani-delights-in-greece-1-2976801

If you are a resident or frequent visitor to the southern Peloponnese please share your favourite place and tell me what it means to you. Click on ‘comments’ link below

© Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2013

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CAN you have an adventure in crisis-torn Greece and not come unstuck? Can you take a mad Jack Russell dog to a rural region and not create havoc? Can you ever feel like more than an outsider in a mountain village that has changed little over the centuries?

You might find the answers to these questions, and hopefully have a giggle along the way, in the book based on my first year in the Mani, in the southern Peloponnese, due to be published in July this year. It’s called Things Can Only Get Feta (Two journalists and their crazy dog living through the Greek crisis) by Marjory McGinn.

In the first year of the big fat Greek adventure, along with my partner Jim (which I started writing about in this blog in 2010), we had such an amazing time, having travelled extensively through this beautiful region, and having befriended some wonderful local characters, that I wanted to shape it into a book so that other adventurers/armchair travellers could get a feel for this unique rural way of life.

Chairman: Wallace soaking up the sun in the Mani

Chairman: Wallace sunbakes in the Mani

I was encouraged by many of the regular blog readers who wrote to the website saying how much they enjoyed our mad meanderings in Greece, especially with naughty Wallace the Jack Russell in tow. A big thanks for that and I hope you enjoy the book.

For an outline of the book and details of how to pre-order it, click on this link to take you to the home page of our website: http://www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

Land’s end: Marjory and Wallace at the southernmost point of the Mani peninsula

Looking back

When we set off in early 2010, it was supposed to be for a year’s adventure only. We aimed to live in the Mani region (middle peninsula of the southern Peloponnese), but we had no idea of the exact location, or what our life would be like, or even if we would find a suitable place to live, especially in the midst of an economic crisis. But that’s the whole point of adventure – stepping right into the unknown and taking whatever comes your way.

The village we ended up in surpassed all our expectations, particularly with regard to the location and the wonderful local characters we met, some colourful British expats, and the mad escapades that would unfold. But other things were difficult, as we outlined in the blog: dealing with Greek bureaucracy, buying a Greek car, surviving the first scorching summer, dealing with alien wildlife (the critters, not the expats) – scorpions, polecats, snakes, hornets.

Then there was the problem of getting a tiny Greek village with typical zero-tolerance of ‘pet’ dogs to accept the crazy, barky, territorial Wallace. Many villagers had never seen a Jack Russell dog before and to their mind, he just looked like a small mutant sheep. To find out how Wallace’s immersion into Greek life panned out, you’ll have to read the book.

Branching out: Jim and Wallace enjoying the lush olive orchards in the spring

One year’s adventure turned into another and in the end we stayed almost three years in the southern Peloponnese, having loved every mad and magical moment. Then there was the Greek crisis, of course. I commented on this in the blog along the way and we did see some massive changes over the three years, particularly in the city of Kalamata where shop closures and business failures were a daily occurrence.

The austerity measures affected everyone in the region, sometimes tragically so, but one thing that never changed was the stoicism of Greek people and their enduring spirit particularly in the face of often spiteful criticism by the international media. Stories from outside the country that depicted Greeks as ‘lazy’ and ‘work-shy’ were not helpful, and yet anyone who has lived in the country will know just how hard most ordinary Greeks do work and strive for a better life, with no state handouts.

Water baby: Wallace swimming in a cove in the shadow of the Taygetos mountains

In our three years, we travelled the whole of the southern Peloponnese, through the Mani, Laconia and the Messinian peninsula, much of which we have already written about and many places we haven’t got round to writing about yet. I will post some short blogs on these, with photos, over the coming months, and general thoughts about Greek life, as we found it. So please keep reading, and your feedback, as always, is appreciated.

We are currently back in Britain for the time being but are keeping close ties with Greece and look forward to our next big fat adventure there.

Best wishes for a happy summer.

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Life in the southern Peloponnese with two journalists and a crazy dog

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