The tower houses of Vathia

Vathia is the image the Mani is sold on: a tight group of tower houses on a bare hill above the sea, most of them four or five storeys, built between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries by families who were at war with each other and needed height more than comfort. Almost all of them are now empty, and many have lost their roofs and floors.

The best frames are from the road below and from the terraces on the seaward side, where the towers stack into a single silhouette. Inside the village the lanes are narrow and rubble-strewn but they give strong foregrounds — a doorway, a broken stair, prickly pear against grey stone. A drive of five minutes further south brings the coastal viewpoint that puts the whole cluster against open water.

Come in the last hour of daylight: the towers are grey and unforgiving at noon and turn gold just before sunset, and the light rakes across their stonework instead of flattening it. Treat the buildings as unsafe — several are privately owned, fenced or actively collapsing, and there is no site management here. Stay outside the ruins and off the walls, and check what is accessible before you plan a set-up.