In November 2008, I travelled to the Mani in Greece to visit the tiny ruined chapel of St. Nicholas in Chora, “a tenth century Byzantine church on a headland two miles up a mountain”, as described by Patrick Leigh Fermor in Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Bruce Chatwin. More specifically, I was making my way to an olive tree very close to the church under which Elizabeth Chatwin had elected to bury the ashes of the writer, her late husband. He came to know the chapel when he stayed in a small apartment at the Hotel Theano in nearby Kardamyli for seven months writing the first draft of his book The Songlines. The ancient church had been one of his favourite places.

The following photos document my journey.