Stone standing without roofs: reserve a day among the empty towers at Vathia

Walking a village nobody lives in

There is no ticket office and no gate, which is half the point. You park below and walk up, and the first twenty minutes go on working out that these are not houses with defensive features but defences that people happened to live in. From there the day is slow: into the towers that are safe to enter, along the lanes between them, out to the shoulder of the hill where the whole place reads at once. The last hour is usually spent sitting with the cape in view while the argument gets going, which is the argument about whether a village like this should be rebuilt, half rebuilt, or left exactly as it is falling.

Loose stone, no shade, steep ground

Five hours outdoors on ground that is all loose stone and steps built for people carrying loads, with almost no shade between ten and three. Nothing here is a graded path. Ankles are what usually go wrong, so boots rather than sandals, and two litres of water per person, because there is nowhere on the hill to buy any. Interiors are entered only where floors have been checked, and some of the best looking towers are the ones you will be kept out of. In July and August the hours are the same but feel twice as long; if heat is a problem for you, ask for April or November instead.

What the figure covers at Vathia

From $128 per person. The figure holds the guide for the full five hours, the drive out from Areopoli and back, water in the vehicle, and entry where entry is controlled. It does not hold lunch, which is eaten in a village on the way back and paid for there, and it does not hold your beds or your travel into the Mani. Nothing is paid to this office and no card details are taken here: the operator invoices you directly, in its own name, and pays us afterwards. Your figure is fixed in writing when the date is set, so a later change in the operator's costs does not move it.

Awkward things people ask about this day

Is anything reconstructed or furnished inside?

No. A few towers were partly restored decades ago for a lodging scheme that never properly ran, and those are shuttered. What you walk through is a village that stopped being lived in, with floors gone, stairs gone and cisterns open in the ground. If you want a restored interior with rooms laid out as they once were, this is not that day, and we would rather you knew before booking.

How many towers can we actually go inside?

Some of them, and not the ones you will most want to. Entry depends on which floors have been checked that season and which owners have said yes, and both change from year to year. Expect to go inside two or three, look up through four storeys of missing floors, and be turned back at others. The guide decides on the day and does not negotiate about it.

Does the day run in winter?

Yes. It runs whatever the numbers, and winter is arguably when the place makes most sense, with the sea grey and the wind coming straight up the hill. What we will not do is tell you the weather will hold. The Mani takes real rain in January and February and there is nowhere up there to shelter, so if the forecast is bad the operator offers to move you rather than walk you into it.