Return to Mani - Part 1

Gulf of Patras

The ferry from Bari hugged the northern shore of the Gulf of Patras. We had made this journey six years earlier when the boat from Brindisi brought me to Greece on the start of my adventure as British Ambassador. In January 2013, there was a heavy fog on the Ionian and over the gulf itself, and we saw the glorious Rion-Antirrion bridge only as we docked at Patras. Now, however, the morning light was sharp, the sky largely cloudless and blue. I picked out easily the large lagoons behind the foreshore, in the near distance Mesolonghi, the Pindus range rearing menacingly above. Thoughts of the revolutionary war swirled around my head: the naval actions - Codrington blocking and instructing Ibrahim Pasha’s fleet in early October 1827 before the final encounter at Navarino; Frank Abney Hastings aboard the fighting steam-ship Karteria; the campaigns on land - poor Mesolonghi three times besieged before the fatal, heroic Exodos; the political arguments about the future shape of the Greek state; and Byron, of course - the young man setting foot in Epirus in 1809 to search for Ali Pasha in his Albanian lairs, and fifteen years later the prematurely aged Archistrategos slowly, feverishly bled to death by his doctors. The community at Mesolonghi had shown us great hospitality in 2015, when the UK was the ‘most honoured nation’ at that year’s Exodos commemorations. It was my first taste of smoked eel, a local speciality: unimaginably good. All of this compound of ideas, associations and memories meant that I was undoubtedly back in Greece. Greece, my beloved Greece.

Some archetypes

Away from Athens, with its political machinations and sophisticated, frenzied way of life, it is easy in Greece to return to basics, to feel the archetypes reassert themselves. Life impresses through repetition of simple things: an olive tree, a fig, a giant terracotta pot, pebbles on beaches, the fragrant earth, gentle seas, boundless sky. It finds expression in stark, vivid colours: the rippling silver-green of an olive grove, the baked orange soil, whitewash on grey stones, and everywhere the intense Greek blue, reaching down from the skies to merge with the sea, turning to turquoise in the shallow bays and creeks. Tastes too are simpler: olives, country bread, salty feta, huge but sweet tomatoes, barbounia, a chilled ouzo or a palatable glass of a local rosé.

This year, we have spent a week in the Mani, as the guests of the Benaki Museum in the house built at Kalamitsi by Paddy and Joan Leigh Fermor. Paddy and Joan decided to gift it to the Benaki in 1996, and it became the museum’s possession in 2011 when Paddy died (Joan had predeceased him). The bequest brought an entail: that the house be turned into a retreat for writers and used for educational purposes. This was no easy task: the house had been built from 1964 to the designs of architect Nikos Hatzimichalis, and it had scarcely been modernised since. I visited it in 2015 and saw at once how much work would be needed to make the house function for its new purpose. Re-wiring, mending the roofs, replacing rotten windows, doors and shutters, renewing bathrooms and kitchen, installing air-conditioning and wi-fi, cataloguing the thousands of books, looking after the original works of art (Leigh Fermor owned important pieces by Craxton, Ghika and others), improving the security of the property, thoroughly cleaning and redecorating - all of this was going to be a substantial undertaking. And it was clearly going to cost a lot of money: money that would have to be raised, since no money accompanied the bequest of the house itself.

The house in its setting

Thanks to the determination, skills and planning of the team at the Benaki a large grant was secured in 2016 from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The work began at once and was completed a couple of months ago. The restoration is magnificent: it has been done to the highest of specifications, but has also preserved the authenticity of the original designs. It still feels like a home: not an ordinary home, but the home of two immensely talented people whose characters, tastes and needs (for privacy, for company) are stamped in the stones and architecture themselves.

The house is now receiving guests: there are guided tours three times a week, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 11:00 am. Reservation is required by email at leighfermorhouse@benaki.gr or by phone at +30 210 3671090 (Monday to Thursday). A VIP launch is planned in October. From next year, writers and educational establishments will be invited to use the house, in line with the wishes of Paddy and Joan. And, from summer 2020 for three months a year, it will be possible for others too to rent the property. You can find booking information at www.ariahotels.gr.

The house from the beach

In my next blog I will say more about what it was like to live in the house for a week. (SPOILER ALERT: It was glorious.) But I will close now by expressing my admiration and thanks to the Benaki Museum and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for the magnificent work they have done to conserve and transmit to future generations this unique legacy. There is no one who will fail to fall in love with and be inspired by this beautiful house in its beautiful landscape and seascape. 

...to be continued.

John

The entrance vestibule