Old Kardamili in Kardamili

Old Kardamili is a walled village with tower houses and churches not far from (new) Kardamili. The old village is mainly from the 16th–17th centuries, but stands on top of even older layers. Kardamili is mentioned in the Iliad as one of the cities Agamemnon offered to Achilles to get him to return to the battlefield of Troy. But whether it is "Old Kardamili" or "new Kardamili" that is meant, I am not sure.

Old Kardamili is located by the red arrow, and new Kardamili to the left.

Panagiotis Troupakis (1788) was one of the Mani clan leaders. He was later nicknamed Mourtzinos, which means bulldog in Greek. Old Kardamili was the most important place in Mani in the early 19th century, and Mourtzinos was Mani's most powerful man. He and two other enemy clan leaders, Mavromichalis and Grigorakis, locked themselves in Mourtzinos' summer house in the port of Kardamili in 1819. The same house that the Swedish author Staffan Stolpe then rented for three years (1969-1972). That meeting had a very important impact on the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Staffan Stolpe writes about this fantastic story in his book Morea – en bok om Peloponnesos, which as far as I know is unfortunately only available in Swedish.

The gate to Old Kardamili.