To the Gates of Hell....and Beyond!

Today was an exciting day. We left our place at Monemvasia and drove into the Mani, another place that I had wanted to visit for decades. I read a bunch of books about it as it is anthropologically fascinating. Maybe the Maniots are the descendants of the Spartans, who headed for the remote mountains when Greece started to be invaded. Maybe they are just a hodge-podge of hardscrabble people who were able to survive in this hard place. In any case, they developed a unique culture. They are one of the "culture of honor" locations like Appalachia, where blood feuds were the dominant method of social control. Family honor is paramount, and any dishonoring leads to punishment, including execution. Daughters who dishonor families through unsanctioned relationships, insults to a family's name all lead to extra-judicial punishment. It is a very conservative, macho culture where men dominate, but women have a peculiar power at funerals -- in their loud and articulate singing laments, they can change the course of a family's destiny through their interpretation of laments, sending sons to avenge the family honor, or lodging complaints of their own. They are called "miralogia" and are sacred. The culture of honor (and the most abundant natural resource, stone) led to a very distinctive architecture, as well, the stone tower. Originally basically a family's "keep" where they could withstand a siege in a blood feud, they are multi-story square stone towers with small windows. Each floor has a ladder that can be pulled up if the family needs to protect itself. Because they are made of stone, this traditional Byzantine-19th century architecture has survived to the present day, and new buildings are built in the same style. We first learned of this place by reading Patrick Leigh Fermor's book, Mani, back in 1992 when we first started coming regularly to Greece. Fermor drives around the Peloponnese, including the Mani, in the 1950s, and tells stories that he hears or experiences, determined to document the culture that he saw as quickly disappearing (he never calls himself a folklorist, but he certainly was). His evocative descriptions transfixed us then and shaped the way we have always understood modern Greece. Being here, in the heart of the place he was describing, is an amazing experience. We are reading the book aloud (no Audible recording exists!) as we drive, and we are also listening to Jeffrey Siger's Sons of Sparta, a modern detective novel set in the Mani (and whose author references Fermor's book and clearly read some of the same anthropological texts that I read). All that to say: we are sleeping in a modern stone tower and driving all around to see this fascinating region today. The day began with a failed trip to see an ethnological museum in Gytheion. We had a restful start to the day as it was only an hour to Gytheion, and arrived by noon. The museum is open until 1pm, says Google and its front door. But not this particular Sunday. That is par for the course for folklore museums. We think that we have seen about 50% of the museums we have visited, and the other 50% are inexplicably closed. Sometimes there is note with some strange excuse, and other times there is just a locked door. We walked around the town and found a Roman theater in a neglected field. One of the really fun things about archaeology in Greece is that there is just so much of it, a lot may (or may not) have been excavated, but it isn't signposted or explained anywhere. So we get to be the detectives. Why are some of the seats laboriously chiseled into butt-shaped dips but others not? Why on those particular rows on one side but not the other? Was it a theater or a bouleterion (council house)? Was it excavated or did it survive as we see it today (pretty intact!).

The first row has a butt-dip and a back for maximum comfort. The second and third rows have butt-dips. The 4th row has butt-dips on the right side but not the left.

Close up of the first row

The archaeologist at work surveying the area

View from above...you can see the straight slabs and the chiseled butt-dipped slabs

Close up of the chiseled butt-dips

Strange holes we could not understand

After finally finding an open peripertor (kiosk that sells small items and snacks), we pushed on into the Mani. The drive was spectacular. Mountainous, with the sea to one side, and hills dotted with the Maniot towers. We stopped at a little chapel overlooking the sea, and it was painted inside with some beautiful icons of saints.

Side wall

altar at the back

A complex of towers

More towers

We stopped at our Airbnb, a modern tower, to drop off our stuff and recharge for the afternoon's adventure.

Our first view of the complex of towers. These are clearly the old ones, not in great shape.

Our tiny efficiency apartment on the second floor of a modern tower.

That is us up on the left

We got our swimsuits and hiking gear, water and some apricots and took off for hell. Literally. Our goal was a "nekromanteion" which was an ancient gate to hell, where you could perhaps communicate with the dead and hear from an oracle. It was at the tip of the longest finger of the Peloponnese, the southernmost part of mainland Greece. Beyond there, islands and then Africa.

The trip south was full of things to look at as we listened to a story set in 2016 about a cop trying to avert a blood feud in the Mani. There were towers galore.

There were semi-identified ruins: a tower or a Kournos?

No idea what a Kournos is, but maybe this is it? Signage was not terrific.

Yet more towers

A modern tower as a monument to a local hero

Finally, we made it to the gates of hell. This is it from the outside. Not particularly prepossessing, but in my experience, the gates are always a little quiet about their importance (yes, this was not our first gate to the underworld, not even the first culture's underworld we have visited)

The entrance

Inside: tributes to many different dead people. Photos and particular gifts to them, evidence of candles, notes...it was very moving.

Inside was a small space that contained a lot of offerings. Some of it was so touching...partly-empty bottles of wine or ouzo, trinkets for children, coins for the dead, lots of stones, some notes. Outside was an engraved piece of marble with a whole paragraph in Greek (we could make out some of it). We left an offering.

There was a hiking path, just a mile long, to a lighthouse at the very tip of the peninsula. We decided to go.

unmarked steps to the foundation walls of a two-room house, no idea how old it was

Mosaic floor of a Roman villa

Can you see the face of an animal in the rock? Two tiny stones for eyeballs? Very mysterious. I felt like we were being watched.

Wild thyme in bloom

Although only a mile each way, it was a challenge for me. I have some acrophobia, and when the angle of the land on the side reaches a certain acuteness, I have trouble staying upright. All the cells in my body want to be lower, and I no longer want to stand. Jellylegs, yes, but also an overwhelming desire to sit or lie down. It has been a challenge for me to keep going, and with Phil's help, I made it.

Do you blame me?

The spine of the finger?

Lighthouse in view, keeping my eyes forward and not to the drop to my right...

There was a cache out there, just beyond the lighthouse, but no way!! I needed Ellie.

Success!

It took about 3 hours to do the two miles, including hanging around the lighthouse admiring the view and talking to Ellie and Papou for father's day. We were worried about driving the mountain roads in the dark, so high-tailed it to the larger part of the road. Unfortunately, we hit Maniot rush hour traffic. First I stopped the detective novel because I thought I heard goat bells. Then we saw them: Two or three sheep dogs were driving the sheep from one area to another along the road. One dog was busy corraling the sheep while the other stopped dead in his tracks glaring at us, clearly telling us to stand still. When all the sheep were out, he turned away. We followed. One dog led the way and the other took turns corraling the sheep who stopped to snack and making sure that we stayed at a respectful distance. It took about 20 minutes for the sheep to get to their new spot. There was nothing we could do except enjoy the sound of the goat bells.

 Once we were free, we quickly found a lovely taverna and had a yummy dinner. We sat outside the church and talked to the family for our weekly family chat, and then headed home. 

It is actually easier to drive at night...I drove slowly so I could be sure that I stayed on the road, but I had earlier warning of oncoming traffic due to the headlights. We got to our tower at about 10, locked ourselves in, and went to bed.