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What is it that connects the island of Syros to Mani? Syros Industrial Museum and Gerolimenas? Gerolimenas and Marseilles?

The answers can be found on a visit to Kyrimai Hotel, in the region of Mani.

It was there that, almost 150 years ago, Michael Katsimantis, a trader from Syros and Theodore Kyrimis, a trader and then serving mayor of Middle Mani, came up with an idea that would put Mani on the commercial map of what was then free Greece.

Maniot products were soon being shipped to and sold in the markets of Ermoupolis and Piraeus, while a variety of other products started finding their way to this, the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese.

Taking advantage of the development of trade that was going on throughout the region, Theodore Kyrimis soon started putting his powerful social position to good use, exporting the products of Mani to the whole of the Mediterranean. At one point, 70.000 live quail were being exported annually for consumption to Marseilles!