Kardamyli and the Patrick Leigh Fermor house

What it is

Kardamyli is the reference village of outer Mani, on the coast of the Gulf of Messenia, with Taygetus behind. And on its outskirts, in Kalamitsi, is the house where the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor and his wife, the photographer Joan Eyres Monsell, lived for forty years. It now belongs to the Benaki Museum, which uses it as a centre for researchers and cultural activities, and opens it to guided visits by reservation. Both things, the village and the house, can be seen in half a day.

Paddy and Joan's house

Leigh Fermor (1915–2011), “Paddy” to his friends and “Michalis” to the Greeks, crossed Europe on foot at eighteen, fought with the resistance in Crete and ended up one of the great travel writers of the 20th century. His book Mani, about the south of the Peloponnese, was published in 1958.

In the early 1960s the couple bought a plot beside the sea in Kalamitsi, on a headland between a bay and a small cove, among olive terraces. The house was built between 1964 and 1967 with the architect Nikos Hadjimichalis and a team of local stonemasons, using peach-coloured limestone quarried from Taygetus itself. While the building went on, Paddy and Joan slept in a tent beside the site. Here he wrote A Time of Gifts (1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986), the books of his youthful walk. Kardamyli made him an honorary citizen for his role in the Greek resistance.

By the couple's donation, the house now belongs to the Benaki Museum.

How to visit

You can only enter on a guided visit with a prior reservation, arranged through the Benaki Museum. The house's website, created by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation with the museum, links to the Benaki's visits page. In some seasons the house is rented out as accommodation and visits are reduced: check the calendar and book well ahead before organising your day around it. The museum does not publish prices or fixed hours on the house's website.

If you want to sleep nearby, the Kalamitsi Hotel is next to the house.

Kardamyli, the village

Homer mentions Kardamyli in the Iliad as one of the seven cities Agamemnon offered Achilles to return to the war, and the village keeps its ancient name.

Old Kardamyli. Climb to the upper part, Pano Kardamyli, where the medieval castle and the fortified compound of the Mourtzinos-Troupakis clan remain, with the 18th-century church of Saint Spyridon, which reuses ancient and Byzantine pieces. Many houses mix Greek and Venetian architecture, and the tower houses mark the village's profile.

The seafront. Below, the village has several beaches, such as Ritsa, Belogianni or Salio. The coast is sheltered by the mountain from the meltemi wind, and in the morning the sea is usually calm.

The trails. Kardamyli is the starting point of old paths to villages and monasteries: you have them in the Kardamyli signposted trails and the Viros gorge. The ashes of the writer Bruce Chatwin were scattered in 1989 beside a Byzantine chapel above the village.

Getting there

Kardamyli is 49 km and 1 h 15 from Kalamata airport by the coast road. Without a car, KTEL Messenia buses from Kalamata station reach Kardamyli and Stoupa, a few a day. The house is in Kalamitsi, at the edge of the village.

When to go

Spring and autumn are ideal for combining house, village and trails. In summer, the heat bears down on the paths; leave the afternoon for the sea.

Eating and sleeping

Lela's Taverna, open since 1983 by the sea, is the village's classic eating house. To sleep beside the trails, the Vardia Hotel, above old Kardamyli.