MANI: A way of life
This is the backstory of the inspiration behind Mani Collective. This first entry is the beginning of the story; how we fell in love with the Mani region of Greece. It all started one summer back in the nineties when my parents first discovered the area as they were exploring the Peloponnese region by motorbike.
Mani: A first impression
By Glenda Allister
I first came here ignorant of all things Mani.
It is the mid-nineties: A searing August day. We ride motorbikes round the edge of the Messinian Gulf from Chrani to Kalamata then leave the seaboard and climb the road into the foothills of the Taygetus mountains. At a high point, the sea reappears and we pause to take in the stunning view stretching southwards below us. Shades of shimmering blue-grey growing ever paler with the distance: sea sky and land eventually receding into one – this is Mani Southernmost tip of the Peloponnese.
We ride on, snaking down the precipitous road to arrive in a village by the sea – Kardamili. We stop at a roadside kafenion and drink coffee draped in the comforting shade of plane trees. A small dark-haired man approaches, smart in his official blue ‘tourist’ uniform: he sits and starts to talk. He leads us to the bottom of, its riverbed dazzling white under the sun, and he talks: of Leda and Zeus, and Castor and Pollux, of monasteries and mountain villages. We follow him up a track between goats and gardens and enter a fortified settlement, and he talks: of an ancient citadel, of clans and beys, of piracy and power struggles….and so begins my education in all things Mani.
The dramatic impact of this cluster of brooding towers and the passion of our guide inspires a quest for more. We spend the following two weeks on a mad dash around Mani, often on red dirt roads and covered in dust, exploring ruined tower settlements, castles, deserted monasteries, chapels, and crumbling Byzantine churches.
Twenty-Five Years on and I know Mani much better now, have read all the ‘greats’ including Homer, Pausanius, and Patrick Leigh Fermor, but it was that dark-haired man with his intoxicating enthusiasm who treated us to coffee and so much talk on that hot August day in Kardamili – standing on the bed of the Viros Gorge and looking up into the Taygetus mountains: walking through the arched entrance into the Toupakis settlement – that first inspired my abiding interest in. and love for the Mani.
