Mani: Our Travels in the Southern Peloponnese

Yassas! We got home late last night after a cheeky post-birthday trip to Greece. We've spent today frantically racing around doing the washing, food shopping, festival prepping & cat placating. I thought I'd better share where we've been before heading off to Beautiful Days tomorrow and our trip becomes ancient history.

We flew to the Greek mainland, landing at Kalamata, the gateway to the Mani peninsula. From there we travelled an hour and a half through the towering Taygetus mountains to the seaside village of Stoupa. Bathed by the warm turquoise waters of the Messinian Gulf, the area was immortalised in Patrick Leigh Fermor's Mani:Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, said to be one of the greatest travel books of all time, and is also where Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was filmed.

With Sparta just 50 miles away, the Maniots are believed to be descendants of the Ancient Spartans although, unlike the film 300 there was no evidence of any men in tight leather pants. It is the only part of Greece never to have been conquered by invaders and resisted Christianity, remaining Pagan until 800AD. When Patrick Leigh Fermor travelled the area in 1956 he passed the desiccated corpses of Nazi soldiers left to rot in their jackboots.

Stoupa is where the writer Nikos Kazantzakis was living when, in 1917 he met Giorgos Zorbas whilst managing a local lignite mine, inspiring the famous 1946 novel, Zorba the Greek, written from a cave on Kaligria beach where they lived together. In September the town hosts an annual literary festival celebrating Kazantzakis's work. Although I know the tune (it's unavoidable wherever you go in Greece), neither of us has ever seen the film, something we should rectify when we've got time. 

Although there's a lot of British and Scandinavian tourists, the vast majority of Stoupa's visitors are from Athens so it still feels very Greek. It's unpretentious and relaxed, there's no All-Inclusive resorts or big hotels, the accommodation being made up of locally-owned studio apartments and traditional stone houses. We stayed at George's Estates (below), one of only a handful of places in the village with a swimming pool (not that we used it with the Messinian Gulf just 250m away). 

We loved the architecture, so very different to Pelion, Halkidiki and Athens, the other places we've stayed at on the mianland. 

We were expecting utter madness in August, the height of the tourist season. Although it was busy there was still space on the golden sands of Stoupa's two Blue Flag beaches to throw down a towel between the rows of sunbeds. 

Lunch was always salad, bread and a large draught beer in one of the many sea-facing tavernas. If, like us, you're a regular visitor, I'm sure you know that crime is virtually non-existent in Greece and, as always, we'd take our phones to lunch and leave the rest of our belongings on the beach. 

Every taverna's Greek salad is slightly different, the Feta either diced, sliced or left as a slab, varying herbs with some heavy on the peppers, others the cucumber and others the tomatoes. Being so close to Kalamata the olives were always plentiful (and delicious!) 

The Red Sky salad, served at Loutros, consisted of beetroot, red apples, walnuts, Balsamic vinegar, yoghurt, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce and a hard white cheese.

Melissa always gave us a complementary plate of sliced watermelon.

Melissa's bread came toasted with a spicy Feta cheese topping.

The Maniot salad consists of Kalamta olives, feta, rocket, coriander, Balsamic vinegar, tomatoes and cucumber. 

Breakfast was eaten on the balcony. We bought locally grown apricots, grapes, nectarines and peaches which we ate with full fat Greek yoghurt drizzled with thyme honey harvested from the slopes of the Taygetis mountains (seen in the background). 

There were cats galore and several charity collecting boxes including the infamous Pussy Pot.

The most famous feline resident was The King of Stoupa, an enormous ginger boy with his own mosaic taking pride of place on the seafront.

The sunsets were spectacular. After the sun went down the temperature dropped to a chilly 31° (ha!) and there were still people swimming at midnight. 

We'd stay on the beach until 7pm returning to George's for a glass of village wine (€8 for 3 litres) on the balcony before heading off to one of the many tavernas on the seafront. 

The food was always delicious with lots of choice for vegetarians, the menus never had photos (something we both hate!) and, with Stoupa being a typically Greek destination, everywhere stayed open late into the night. I don't think we ever got to bed before 1am! The prices were good with dinner and wine rarely costing more than €28 and, more often than not, we'd get free cake, a starter or plum raki.

We took advantage of this very generous offer numerous times during our stay! 

Estate agent by day, bozouki player by night! 

As usual we travelled with carry-on only, wearing everything we bought with us at least three times. 

Jon wanted a week of sunbathing, swimming, long lazy lunches and chilled taverna nights and he got his wish. We absolutely loved our visit to the Mani but next time we'll go earlier (or later ) in the season,  hire a car and see more of it.

Wish us luck at Beautiful Days, see you next week!