Η Mani It is a strangely charming place, with its wild natural beauty and the imposing stone landscape created by man.
There you will find a series of dreamy beaches, as if they are pristine no matter how crowded they are.
In or near beautiful villages and picturesque settlements, its beaches Messinian Mani combine stone, picturesque harbors, special colors and traditional situations.
But there you will also find a beach whose name is not exactly attractive. This is what we call the man who has taken human life!
The reason for the beach of Foneas, where most people are kept discreetly at a distance. Not because he is afraid of her, but because she is less known than the most popular in the area.
You will find Foneas in West Mani, just outside Cardamom, in the middle of the beautiful route Kalamata-Areopolis. You have to cross a path and peek behind some trees to see it, so it used to be a secret beach.
Relatively unknown to the general public remains even today, as the visitor will usually choose one of the coastal barks of Messinian Mani. Only the demanding traveler who asks will learn about Foneas.
What do you find there? Crystal clear waters and a magnificent rock dominate the middle of the bay, dividing the beach into two beaches. Throwing its welcome shade on a good part of the coast or acting as a natural springboard for enjoyable dives.
A small paradise is Foneas, a sentence that sounds relatively oxymoronic. But it is enough to see him to change his mind. These deep turquoise waters with their impressive caves, white pebbles and rugged landscape will be etched in your memory.
This hidden diamond of hers West Mani remains untouched by mass tourism and stubbornly disorganized. It is wrapped in the generous embrace of the overgrown Messinian land, with rocks and pebbles offering points in terms of natural beauty.
Distinctive and authentic, Mani shouts in every bit of it and continues to say "no" to every attempt at tourist exploitation.
You will find only one canteen here, for everything else you will have to take care of yourself. Maybe you will be lucky and it will give you its natural shade. The only sure thing is that it will take you to island landscapes, leaving you with your mouth open.
The icy turquoise waters, the caves and the rocky landscape cap any golden sand or comfort of an organized beach. Foneas has a bad name, but he also has grace: natural beauty and quiet.
If you overcome the not at all tempting place name and decide to go down the asphalt road, you will meet one of its most beautiful beaches Peloponnese.
But who and why to call Fonea one idyllic beach; Let's ask the locals, who still know and tell the macabre legends that creep after her.
The beach of Foneas is the end of the homonymous gorge, which the locals call the Gorge of Noupanti. It starts from the Monastery of Vaidenitsa and ends, after about 8 km, at the crystal clear beach.
The inhabitants of the neighboring villages (Saidona, Exochori, Proastio) call the Gorge of Foneas "Noupanti", because in the old days the meetings and the regulations of the neighborhoods took place there. The exit of the ravine to the sea was called Fonea, in a mixture of legends and real events.
The latter include, for example, all the lost lives, people and animals that were drowning, that is, trying to cross the raging stream before the construction of the stone bridges. In the first you will meet many and different.
The most beloved legend wants a pirate to be shipwrecked on the beach and find refuge in her cave. And to survive, he killed passers-by to rob them. When he managed to repair his ship, he set sail again, leaving a bleak legacy of the name.
In another version, we hear about a huge snake that devoured the herds of monks of the monastery of Vaidenitsa.
There, on the mountain peaks of Montenegro and Taxiarchis in Taygeto, hidden in the ravines between Saidona and Exochori, lived Foneas, the snake that eventually killed the man. They set him on fire and in order to escape, Foneas fell into the stream that led to the sea. And he finally drowned.
The tragic event of the dozens of road accidents that have taken place there, due to the danger of the road, must have deeper roots. Unfortunately, we meet such "killers" in many parts of our country, closed turns without visibility usually. You can understand them from the iconostasis.
And from such a sharp turn begins the descent to Foneas, who claimed a heavy toll of human blood to obtain his tragic name. We do not know if he was a murderer in ancient times, but he proved to be a murderer for modern travelers.
Beautiful and traditional settlements, stone houses, cobbled alleys and rugged natural landscape. You are not wrong, you are in Messinian Mani, a place that nature gave generously. And it was given to him winter-summer, having to line up a series of wonderful beaches for nonsense and magic.
Leaving Foneas on his throne, one will find a multitude of beaches that combine all the beauty of the world: rich vegetation, olive and cypress trees in the first place, bays taken from a painting by a naturalist painter and deep and clear waters. Sometimes green, sometimes blue.
And definitely under the shadow of Taygetos and with the feeling of tradition to accompany your every step.
The names here are many and special, Ritsa and Kalamitsi are known and honored by everyone.
But what to pioneer for the Nun? The beach that enchanted Nikos Kazantzakis and gave us the "Life and State of Alexis Zorba". Just below Foneas, in the most popular Stoupa, you will find the great beach jewelry of the area.
An intoxicating coast with white, like powder, sand and crystal blue-green waters. You will say that it is a postcard. And then you will dive in and see that everything is true.
Remaining in this part of West Mani, one can not help but talk about Cucumbers, the old seat of the Beys and the most important port of the Messinian Gulf.
Today it is a picturesque fishing village next to Kalamata with a small beach right diamond. Green waters, pebbles and scattered rocks in the quiet. Even the vegetation was jealous of the waters here and said to go down to the shore…