The towers

The tower houses are the reason the Mani looks like nowhere else in Greece. They are stone, up to twenty metres high, four or five storeys, with very small windows and very low doors.

They were built against pirates and invaders. But they were also built against each other. Maniot society ran on extended families, and disputes between them became vendettas that could last generations and were fought from the towers. A family's tower was the measure of its standing, and its height was the measure of its power. Bringing one down meant bringing the family down with it.

Vatheia, seven kilometres north of Cape Tainaron on a hill at 174 metres, is the one everybody photographs: at least seventy towers packed together, most of them now empty. It is first mentioned in 1571 by a Venetian survey. Local tradition holds that all its towers belonged to just four families, which the presence of four olive presses may support.

The churches

Because Ottoman settlers never established themselves here, the churches of the Mani were neither destroyed nor converted. More than 1,800 Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches have been recorded, most of them small, many of them with their wall paintings intact. Mesa Mani has the greatest concentration, and the density has no parallel in Greece.

Among the most important are the Sotiras at Gardenitsa, Ai-Stratigos at Boulari, and Agioi Sergios and Vakchos at Kitta, of the early twelfth century. In Areopoli, the church of the Taxiarches is where the fighters gathered in 1821.

1821

On 17 March 1821, the captains of the Mani assembled at Areopoli — then called Tsimova — under Petrobey Mavromichalis, raised the banner and declared war on the Ottomans. That was about a week before the official start of the revolution, and the town still marks the date every year.

Cape Tainaron

The southern tip of the peninsula is the southernmost point of mainland Greece.

In antiquity a cave here was understood to be the gate to Hades — the opening through which Heracles dragged Cerberus into the light — and a nekromanteion, an oracle of the dead, operated beside it. A Roman mosaic floor is still in place on the ground, along with the remains of baths and a small chapel built from ancient stone on top of the sanctuary.

A lighthouse built by French engineers in the nineteenth century stands at the end, half an hour's walk from where the road stops.

Areopoli is the historic centre of the Mani: stone lanes, tower houses, a Byzantine museum in one of them, and the churches of 1821.

Limeni, below it on the water, is a handful of stone houses around a small bay with very clear water, and the tower of the Mavromichalis family.

Gerolimenas looks older than it is — a merchant built it around 1870 as a shipping point for goods leaving the Mani, including, it is said, quail for the French market.

Vatheia is the tower village, and Kitta, Lagia and Boulari are the ones to stop at for the churches.

In Exo Mani, which is administratively part of Messenia, Kardamyli and Stoupa are greener and more comfortable, with beaches and a longer season. Above them, Kastania, Tseria and Milia sit on the slopes of Taygetos.

Gythio, on the eastern side, is the port town — neoclassical houses stacked above the waterfront, and the islet of Kranai joined to it by a causeway.

The Taygetos range runs down the spine of the peninsula and reaches its highest point at Profitis Ilias. The Viros Gorge, which comes down to the sea at Kardamyli, is the best-known walk in the Mani, and old stone paths connect the mountain villages above it.

Hundreds of caves open in the limestone, and the largest of them, the Diros Caves, are visited by boat along an underground river.

The coast is rock rather than sand for most of its length, and the water off it is exceptionally clear.

The Mani is a rocky coast with beaches in the gaps.

The sandy ones are at the two ends. Stoupa, in Exo Mani, is the most organised — fine sand, shallow water, family beach. Kalogria beside it is smaller. Mavrovouni, south of Gythio, is a long sandy beach open to the wind and used by windsurfers.

Everything between is pebble and rock. Kardamyli and Foneas are pebble with clear deep water, and Foneas in particular is known for the large rock standing in the middle of it. In Mesa Mani the swimming is off rocks and out of small coves, and Porto Kagio, near the tip, is a closed bay with a couple of tavernas.

The Mani produces olive oil and not much else, and the oil is the point. The trees grow on terraces cut into rock, in poor soil and hard conditions, which is exactly what produces good oil.

The other things to look for are syglino — pork smoked over aromatic wood and preserved — lalangia, strips of fried dough eaten at feasts, and sfela, a hard, sharp sheep's cheese from the wider Messenian region.

Wild greens, herbs and honey come off the mountain, and the coastal villages cook fish and octopus.