Manolates. And the path up from the sea

It takes about an hour and a half on foot. From the tavernas at Platanakia on the coast road, a path follows a stream uphill under plane trees, crosses it a few times and keeps climbing. This is the Valley of the Nightingales, and in May and June the birds are louder than the water. At the top, at around 350 metres on the slopes of Mount Ampelos, the path becomes a cobbled lane, and the lane becomes Manolates.

The village is small: whitewashed houses and old stone walls, wooden balconies, pots of basil on the steps and lanes too narrow for cars. Drivers leave the car at the edge and walk in like everyone else. Above it the mountain keeps rising in pine and oak. Below it the terraces fall away towards the north coast and the open sea.

Ampelos means vine, and the mountain has earned the name. The Muscat grapes for the sweet Samian wine grow on terraces all around these villages, many of them too steep for anything but hands. Manolates itself lives from its tavernas and its workshops. Potters and woodworkers sell bowls, plates and spoons from open doorways, and you can often watch the work going on inside.

It is not an undiscovered village, and it does not pretend to be. On summer mornings the day visitors come up from Kokkari and the lanes fill. Come early, or stay into the evening when the last car has gone back down the hill. Then Manolates belongs to the people who live here again.

And to the nightingales.