Gerolimenas – Leontaki

Route: Gerolimenas – Boulari – Diporo – Pepo – Leontaki – Gerolimenas

Timing: approx. 3.5 hours (depending where you leave your car)

Difficulty: 4/5

Description: Another classic Deep Mani walk- virtually deserted villages, tower houses and a baffling amount of man-made terracing dug into the hillsides. The walking time depends on where you leave your car. For a full walk, Gerolimenas is the obvious place (especially of you are staying there). This picturesque sea-side village is the perfect place to end up, especially as there are no coffee shops or tavernas en route. This then means a climb in altitude from sea-level to 500m. However, as the only way from Gerolimenas to the proper start of the walk at Diporo is on a concrete road, you may choose to leave your car here instead, thus reducing the walking time considerably.

1. Route out of Gerolimenas if you leave the car here. Alternatively, follow the route by car and park up where the road ends in Diporo.
2. The beginning of the kalderimi up to Pepo lies after a parking area at the top end of Diporo. Head up the concrete track and turn off right at the way marked telegraph pole shown in the photo. The walkers’ sign has completely disintegrated. The path from here is fairly obvious as it starts to snake up the hill, with Leontaki perched up above. It is a bit rocky and overgrown in places. At one point it drops down into the dry river bed and continues on the other side.
3. As you near Pepo, hop over a crumbled dry-stone wall that crosses the path and follow the red way marks up towards the village. Pepo is tiny and it’s straight forward finding your way through it.

Once you emerge on the other side of the village, the concrete road will take you all the way up to Leontaki. There are two alleyways leading into Leontaki, as the map shows. Take either and head to the modern church located beneath the main road (before doing this you could continue on the main road to the next village of Mountanistika- a fascinating, deserted tower-house village, with superb views to the south).

4. Just after the church, another disintegrating signpost indicates the start of the path back down and you soon pass another much smaller church. The path descends on the other side of the hill and rejoins the path you came up on- retrace your steps back to Diporo and to where you parked your car.