Safe Return Doubtful

This is a quiet time of year for Alika and the Mani. Though a few visitors came from the cities for the long Christmas weekend, they came seeking tranquility. The only disturbance was the odd barking dog, and the occasional speeding car; the place is afflicted by seemingly bored young people racing their cars around the narrow roads.

On Saturday Roja and I found a very unused path that descended to the three beaches that lie to the south west. Not long into the hike, barely out the village of Alika, we were joined by two other dogs; my bodyguards as one passing motorist stopped to say, as well as good wishes for the season. The other two dogs leave Roja to swim alone, too cold for them I expect.

We spent Christmas Eve at Tigani, a fifteen minute drive to the north.

The Tigani is a spit of rock like the handle of a frying pan (which is what the name means) stretching from the other side of the bay three miles from Mezapo and expanding at the end to a great high rock. This is covered with a ruin: the Castle of the Mani. It was built but William II de Villehardouin, fourth Frankish prince of the Morea, in 1248, and was one of the three great fortresses defending the south-eastern Peloponnese (the other I have visited at Mystras, and the remaining at Monemvasia).

To describe it as it deserves, I’ll borrow from Patrick Leigh Fermor again..

<blockquote>The connecting panhandle is a filament made of wicked cones and serrated jags of rock pocked every few yards with salt pans. A shadowless, desolate wilderness.

At the extremity of the peninsula the castle wall jutted above a sheer drop in a rampart cloudy with cystus and thyme and overhung with swags of elderflower. It was odd to think of Frankish sentinels shouting the alarm here, at the sight of Byzantine or Saracenic galleys, in the patois of Normandy or Champagne, or the fair-headed garrison hauling mangonels to the battlements under the fluttering lion rampant of the Villehardouin. To the north-west hung the phantoms of the Messenian Cape, and to the south cape after cape of the Mani followed each other, each growing dimmer in a succession of uptilted table mountains. The sea blazed with gold from the horizon to the spiked base of the rock, where it was a purplish blue that turned green in the shallows. The rock blades were rimmed with white foam. </blockquote>

Christmas Day here was warm, as much as 24C, and we stayed local in Alika. It’s too hot for Cumbrian dogs..

Today, Tuesday, we have been out to Gerolimenas, the village four kilometres to the north. Here, there is a mini-market, and a couple of taverns and restaurants. There were a few people around. I met two German couples, one that I had seen at Tigani parked up for the night at the carpark there. They were living in their van and working online, and as with a few vans I have met, had just picked up a rescue dog from Kalamata. The other German couple were a bit older and I recognised them, but couldn’t think from where. They remembered that it was on Lefkada at the surf beach just before the storm hit. They have the worst behaved dog I have encountered for a long while. Again, the three year old male tried to attack Roja, as he had in Lefkada. The street and village dogs would never behave like this.

Amusingly, the Germans get their vans tucked into the most unlikely of park-ups. I really thought the young couple would be stuck, as the exit would be steep and very loose rock, and they were in a 2003 old model Crafter. They get them from their special book, which I have mentioned before, that only Germans are allowed. It’s all very secret.

100 metres cliffs stand over Gerolimenas to the north, and there’s a steep trail up the cliff-face that I was keen to take. It’s possible to get to the top, though slow for me, but the continuation to make it a circuit isn’t possible at this time of year; various prickly bushes have grown over the path. The climb does give splendid views however.

Back at the ranch, I’ve been watching the usual sport, and embarked on my now annual (it’s in its second year) Film Festival. I’m three into it, and so far so good, but nothing really special yet. I’ll post separately about them. Food wise I picked up what I needed in Areopolis on Friday and cooked and froze stuff over the weekend. The apartment is okay, the building itself is impressive, but a lot of the furniture and appliances are second-rate and falling to bits. It’s a good break, but I’ll be pleased to be on the road again later in the week.