KOSTAS and the yummy world

Vatheia

Continuing south, the rocky peninsula starts to narrow, as its east and west coasts rush to their meeting. Vatheia (Βάθεια), perched high above the sea, shows just how extraordinary this area once was. While many villages have one or two towerhouses, Vathia sprouts a forest of them. It looks like a medieval fantasy, but clan wars were taking place here, often from one side of the windy streets to another, well into the 19th century.

Unfortunately, the majority of the buildings, today, are again deserted and it is really very disappointing to see all the money that was spent to have been actually wasted away. Today, only one restaurant-café operates in the village, which offers great views. Just before arriving to Vatheia, at the Kapi settlement, there are two beautiful little bays that form two sandy beaches. Great places for a dive into the deep blue waters of the Messenian Gulf.

Cape Tainaron

Cape Tainaron (Ακρωτήριον Ταίναρον), also known as Cape Matapan, is the southernmost point of mainland Greece and separates the Messenian Gulf in the west from the Laconian Gulf in the east. Cape Matapan has been an important place for thousands of years. The tip of Cape Matapan was the site of the ancient town Tenarus, near which there was (and still is) a cave that Greek legends claim was the home of Hades (the Underworld), the god of the dead. The ancient Spartans built several temples there, dedicated to various gods. On the hill situated above the cave, lie the remnants of an ancient temple dedicated to the Sea God Poseidon (Νεκρομαντεῖον Ποσειδῶνος). Under the Byzantine Empire, the temple was converted into a Christian church.

Vatheia is the most photographed village in Mani and a tourist attraction during spring and summer due to the abundance of wild flowers that cover the nearby hills and its scenic views. Moreover, it serves as an iconic example of the south Maniot vernacular architecture as it developed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Vatheia is first mentioned in 1571, by a Venetian diplomatic mission, as "casale di Vathia". In the 20th century, Vatheia was progressively abandoned by its residents, who emigrated either to Athens or to faraway places. In the 80s the Greek Tourist Board decided to restore the beautiful tower-houses and bring life back to the town. They restored the houses and gave them back to their owners to use them either as residences or hotels.

The coasts almost do meet a bit further down between Porto Kagio and Marmari. The former, on the east coast, is named after the quails which were caught here in outstretched nets, before being shipped out of Gerolimenas. To the west, Marmari has a couple of sandy coves, rare for this rocky coast, and above them sits the aptly named Marmari Paradise Resort offering good value stone-built rooms and a taverna.

The entrance to Hades, the gate to the Underworld according to the ancient Greeks, is believed by the locals to be at some caves located at the small fishing cove on the east of the ruins of the Poseidon temple. There is a foot path that takes you down there.

At the very tip of the cape there is a lighthouse, which built by French engineers in 1882 and operated for the first time in 1887. Rrecently the lighthouse has gone through a total renovation. At Cape Matapan, the Titanic's would-be rescue ship, the SS Californian, was torpedoed and sunk by German forces on 9 November 1915. In March 1941, a major naval battle, the Battle of Cape Matapan, occurred off the coast of Cape Matapan, between the Royal Navy and the Italian Regia Marina, in which the British emerged victorious in a one-sided encounter. The encounter's main result was to drastically reduce future Italian naval activity in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Then the road passes by another small bubble beach and continues to the lighthouse uninterrupted. It is supposed the whole path to be only 700m long. I really do not know! It seems to me much longer. Maybe, because it is much more difficult that it seems on the map. From the car to the lighthouse will take a leisurely 40 minutes. Very good trekking shoes are needed for the rocky terrain. Some water and a cap will be certainly very much appreciated by your thirsty sun-burned self!

To visit the lighthouse, you have to leave your car at the end of the road, just above the caves of Hades. Go down to the small but beautiful Tenaro Beach, where you can swim on your way back to clean away all the dust off your tired body. Pass the little beach and follow the red-colored (the soil obviously contains iron, which when is oxidized turns red) path. In about a hundred meters the path passes through a roman villa, where a floor mosaic can still be seen.

You may be a bit exhausted, when you arrive at the lighthouse, but the views both on your way there as well as from the yard of the lighthouse are rewarding. Rest for some time before taking the way back. Naturally, the walk back is a little tougher!

Porto Kagio

I left the cape very tired and I drove up north (there is nothing towards the south, anyway) to the town of Porto Kagio (Πόρτο Κάγιο). Porto Kagio faces a small bay off the Laconian Gulf and is about 5km from Cape Matapan. This picturesque little town was known in the ancient times as Psamathous. The modern name comes from the Venetian Porto Quaglio and the French Port des Cailles (Quail Port).

Porto Kagio was the base of Lambros Katsonis's pirate fleet, and it was at Porto Kagio that it was finally destroyed. In World War II, Porto Kagio was a place where many British soldiers escaped to Egypt. Porto Kagio is the perfect place for quite relaxing holidays. The sea is wonderful and there are several taverns to eat and holiday rooms to let.

Some 17th- and 18th-century maps called it "Maina", so some authors consider it to be a possible location for the castle of Grand Magne, but medieval portolans mention no such castle here. The Ottomans built a castle here in about 1568, to protect the port, which was used for galleys patrolling the Kythera Channel. The Venetians attacked the castle in 1570, and the Ottomans surrendered and abandoned it. In 1670, the Ottomans returned and built a new castle. They were driven out in 1770 during the Orlov Revolt.

Lagia

I left Porto Kagio and headed north east to one of the most well preserved villages of Mani: Lagia (Λάγια). Lagio is a very quiet (almost sadly empty) town with stone tower-houses, some of which have the unique shape of pyramidal frustum. I visited the town mostly to see its main attraction, which is “Bey’s Café” or “Kafeneio ton Kynigon”.

We had a beautiful lunch at the “Akrotiri” tavern. The tavern also offers rooms to let at the floor above it. We eat some excellent fried little fish “atherina” …. I believe they were the same little ones who gave me the body peeling earlier… lol. And yes: I had spaghetti meatballs, the same way my mother used to cook them for me… this is what I call “happiness”!

The café is located on the main road and is famous mainly of its fully decorated walls: old, colored or black and white photos hanging everywhere, old paintings showing old ladies, towers, prickly pears, knives, worry beads, walking sticks, shells, sculptures, and much more. The walls are painted with some nice looking portraits and other popular topics. The owners have two sons: a sculptor and a painter, who obviously are responsible for this awesome and bizarre “art gallery”.

Diros Caves

Leave Mezapos behind and drive north on the main road to Areopoli. As you approach the Pyrgos Dirou town, there is no way to miss the signs towards the famous Diros Caves. Drive through the town and at the Kampinares road-fork turn left. On the right the road leads to the beautiful Diros beach. Both the beach and the caves are located at the base of the Diros bay, a quiet, protected gulf.

On the small pebbled beach under the caves there are some buildings (they also look very 70s to me) which look neglected. A tourist shop and a tacky café completes the picture. I was feeling very lazy that day, so I did not enter the caves. To tell you the truth I felt a bit uneasy to the idea of getting into a small boat with other naughty tourists wearing salvation jackets. The cave network is the Mani's number one tourist attraction and rightly so. The Diros caves consist of two caves: Alepotrypa and Vlychada.

The richness and quality of the unearthed findings witness the existence of a populous society in Alepotrypa, which developed over time into an important center that engaged largely in trade, maritime travel, farming and stockbreeding. Strangely enough, human skeletons were found on the surface, meaning that entombment had not taken place.

To me the whole place looked a bit dated, like coming out from a 70s Greek Tourist Board poster; the way it looked when I first visited the place back in 1983 (as a high school student). The tickets to enter the caves you have to buy some 300m before the entrance to the caves. There is a parking in front of the ticket booth, so you buy the tickets and continue with your car to the final destination, where there is also a big parking full of touristic buses.

They were explored by the speleologists Ioannis and Anna Petrochilos. The Alepotrypa cavern was discovered in 1958. Archaeological research begun in 1970 under the direction of archaeologist Georgios Papathanassopoulos. In the course of the late Neolithic period (4000 - 3000 BC), the cave was extensively used as shelter, dwelling, workshop, storage place for goods, cemetery and a place of worship.