VATHIA

The town of Vathia (photo) is probably the most impressive and the least destroyed of the Mani towns, perhaps because much of the village is deserted. If you want to visit one town in the Mani that will impress you architecturally this is the one.If you rent a car to drive the Mani get one with a good engine probably 1400 CC or more. Not because you will want to drive fast but because if you take the eastern road back you will feel more confident in your vehicle's ability to make it up the hills.

The inhabitants of the Mani peninsula are so tough, the land so inhospitable, that it has never been conquered. Even the Germans left them alone when they occupied the country in World War Two.

All the more reason to go there for as frightening as they were to the Turks and the Germans, the Maniatis are among the most hospitable of the Greeks and their houses, like fortified towers, make up for the lack of major archeological sites.

They claim proudly to be the direct descendants of the Spartans and are known for their independence and the fact they are impossible to govern. These are certainly my kind of people. You can begin a trip through the Mani in Areopolis and drive down to the bottom on the western road and back up the eastern side and see the whole thing in a day.

There are some impressive beaches down at the bottom of the peninsula in Marmafi and Porto Kagio. Most of the villages are a collection of the famous tower houses interspersed with typical Greek country architecture similar to the junta-era apartment buildings of Athens and just as tasteless. But there are clusters of old buildings here and there that make for some impressive photographs