The Mani is a very rocky, barren part of the country, whose inhabitants are renowned for their hardihood. They claim to be descended from the ancient Spartans, and were never actually conquered by the Turks or anyone else. On one occasion the Turks managed to extract from them a promise to pay tribute, but they never actually paid it. Despite the poverty of the land the area used to be quite thickly populated judging by the number of villages you see dotted about the landscape. In fact it was no doubt overpopulated in the past, which was one of the factors which contributed to the terrible feuds that used to exist between the various Maniot families, or clans. It was these endless and bloody feuds which gave rise to the towers you can see all over the place. Families used to bombard each other, sometimes with canon, from these towers, which they would build higher during the night so as to gain an advantage over their hated adversaries.

Here we are looking south towards the southernmost tip of continental Greece, Cape Tainaron.