18th April 2017
(I apologise for this being late but the explanation is contained in the post)
Basil is currently parked within a stones throw of the Gates of Hades as believed by the Ancient Greeks. Being in the vicinity of the underworld wifi and other modern communications are not that reliable so this blog may be posted a day late.
We are, in fact, at Cape Tenaro, which is the most southerly point in mainland Greece and at the end of the Mani Peninsular. In reality the most southerly point is another 2 km down a Basil proof track which we intend to walk tomorrow morning. Also at this Greek equivalent of Britain’s Land’s End, is a temple to Poseidon and the remains of a small Roman town which grew up around the temple. Everything here is very low key: just a few cars and no tourist tat. This is probably because it is so remote.
We started our day down the Mani with a stop at a small supermarket where we met an interesting couple in another motorhome. A Spanish plastic surgeon, who had until recently been working with refugees in Greece and his German partner. They seem to live a peripatetic life: he living in Spain and her in Germany. They leave their motorhome in Greece and then fly out and meet up in Greece, where the alternate between the motorhome and hotels.
We then progressed down the rugged peninsular to the small village of Platsa, which our guidebook said had panoramic views. It did have a lovely little church, which was locked and our first genuine tower house, but views there were none!
Church – Platsa
We carried on to our lunchtime stop which was at the idyllic Pantazi beach. We were entertained by some giddy goats as we ate the remains of last night’s curry and a spinach pie which I had surreptitiously acquired at a bakery earlier. It has been 9 weeks without a pie and although the Greek ones are very different, it tasted delicious. Now only if they would do pork instead of spinach I would be a really happy bunny. It would have been a good overnight stop but it was only just after midday and so we decided to carry on.
Lunch Stop at Pantazi Beach
Giddy Goats
The Mani peninsular is undoubtedly very rugged. The olive trees grow on unfeasibly barren soil covered in large boulders. Inland there are huge mountains up to nearly 8,000 feet and some still with snow on their peaks. Although there are a few flattish areas it is mostly precipitous with small coves and beaches appearing where a gorge meets the sea, which is the most brilliant hues of blue and turquoise. The verges and mountainsides, at this time of year, are again a sea of spectacular wild flowers.
Mani Interior
The guidebooks indicate that de-population is a problem on the Mani, but we saw a large number of new developments. These have all been carried out on a very small scale and strictly in accordance with traditional building styles. Many have been built to ape the famous Mani tower houses. At the moment there is no sign of major resorts.
I had targeted the small fishing village of Neo Itilo as our overnight stop. I was warned about a narrow approach, but told that there was a small carpark with a beautiful view over the harbour. The road though the village was narrow, but nothing compared with our contortions last week. Unfortunately though when we arrived at the carpark someone was in the process of building a new house between the parking area and the harbour. The view had all but disappeared.
Neo Itilo
We therefore decided to press on to the end of the peninsular and as we progressed the landscape became even more barren. There were now huge cliffs abutting the sea and there were very few villages. We stopped to photograph the famous abandoned village of Vathia with its collection of deserted tower houses.
Abandoned Tower Houses = Vathia
The final stretch consisted of a spectacular coastline, with plunging cliffs and idyllic, isolated sandy coves. When we finally ran out of road there was a small stony carpark (36.402387, 22.486303) with a handful of cars; in front of it the remains of the Temple of Poseidon; and an amazing view. There are three of four houses a few hundred metres up the road and one Taverna.
Cape Tenaro – Basil bottom right
Sarah took her book down to a small cove with crystal clear water while I went up to the Taverna. They explained to me that they are open this evening, but who will be there other than us, in this remote location, we will wait to see. We have no data signal but the Taverna has wifi which I have been able to connect to with my WiFi booster antenna. Hopefully we will be able to get the password when we go to eat and we will have enough bandwidth to publish the blog later. Otherwise it will have to wait until tomorrow. (The wifi at the Taverna turned out to be a myth, or at least we couln’t connect to it even when we were in the taverna!)