Dealt the lowest Kard?

Any trip will have those moments of slight disappointment, which today was quite simply down to Kardamili not quite being the picturesque little port town we expected, and combining that with the beauty we've had to leave behind in Monemvasia. That's perhaps being a little harsh, especially on the 'hotel' we're staying in, which consists of a number of little apartments arranged on a slope about 2km from Kardamili itself, and has the fantastic view above from our own large terrace. But there's a clear sense of anti-climax.

The expectation was of a small town with a pretty little harbour, but that look for the area has possibly been monopolised by Kalamata, a further 30km up the coast (as it turns out, we take a trip to Kalamata later, and it's a big place that actually improves our view of Kardamili).

Here there are some shops (one of which finally furnishes me with a decent hat for the trip...), a patisserie, and some nice cafés lined along a main street, with a small ruined old town behind, and a number of hotels and guest houses between the main street and the sea, with pebbled shores dotted between uninviting rocks. It's pretty in its own way, but suffers slightly in comparison with our previous two stops.

There remained time, after a longer than expected drive, to visit the old town, which appears to amount to four or five buildings arranged around a wooden hut housing a Greek lady unimpressed by my Greek request for two tickets (this is definitely the minority in all of our time in Greece, where the people of the Peloponnese are unremittingly friendly). The buildings (either left to ruin, or pristine from restoration) house giant empty spaces for the most part, though two mansion house rooms have been given over to an interesting small museum (the Greeks seem to do museums on any scale incredibly well) on the history and customs of the Mani.

However, of more interest (thanks to Patrick Leigh Fermor) is the main tower. Towers appear to have been to the Mani what castles were to the Scots. Shows of wealth, influence and strength. The Mani towers, however, built by families with ties that Fermor himself likens to the Scots Clans, saw a bit more action than even the most ravaged castle, as Mafia-esque family feuds broke out, and manic tower building would take place to try and outflank and outheight the enemy. Feuds could last years, with all but the family members directly involved leaving the village or town that was consumed by the violence.

Speaking of Fermor, this is his manor, he was made a free man of the area after his role in the Cretan resistance during World War 2. A man of many talents. He had a home in Kalamitsi, just a fraction up the coast, which was used asa setting in the third of Richard Linklater's 'Before' movies, Before Midnight, which sparks my interest (the name of this journal is taken from an obscure quote from the first of the movies, Before Sunrise). Finding the house (which Fermor decreed was to become a writers' retreat following his death, which doesn't appear to have happened yet) seems difficult from articles I've read online while here, but he certainly had a nice spot in a little curved rocky bay harbouring clear blue waters.

Maybe I'm being a little hard on Kardamili after all. A drive through reveals those nice little cafés, and sadly the patisserie is closed. We'll see what the morning brings.

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Greek cats continue to make their presence known. Mystras had a number we came to know, as did Monemvasia (where they seemed positively encouraged). The hotel we're staying in now has a ginger mother, with a couple of kittens (one ginger and white, the other a calico), and a ginger and white male (presumably the father, it seems mother doesn't cut him much slack). Then eating in a restaurant in the evening we were kept entertained by four kittens and their virtually endless antics, which prompts me to ponder that all restaurants should really have a basket of kittens for light entertainment.