[Elpida]

I didn't read the book yet because I probably wouldn't be able to read it in English and I hesitate to read the German translation.
But I would add some personal experiences to your impressions - I just pick up two points:

Originally Posted by Mike L

If anyone saw the film Ill Met By Moonlight, you'll remember Patrick Leigh Fermor was the officer who was in charge of the plot to kidnap of the German commander in Crete

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Perhaps though sometimes leaving me to wonder if it was all a true reflection of reality at the time or maybe there was more than a little of the way he now (at the time the book was written) remembered it, or the way he would have liked it to be. The book after all was written in 1977 about experiences in 1933-1934, and I definitely feel that in the intervening decades a rose-colored patina had developed over it all.

I lived on Crete for 12 years (until 2008). Fermor's involvement in the abduction of General Kreipe is not forgotten even nowadays and there take place annual commemoration ceremonies for that day. Not only to remember the kidnapping, but also to remember the nearly 50 Cretans who were executed immediately after the abduction. 'Immediately after' means, that Fermor and his supporters were still on the island (it took them almost 3 weeks to leave Crete) - but no-one betrayed them, the sense of honour of Cretan people led them to see their men and boys executed and their village be burnt.
I am sure, that someone who went through this experiences must find a way to keep his positive sight of view and to forget all the cruelty.

So in the 60s, when Fermor decided to live in the Mani (Peleponnes), he choose an area, that is even today one of the "wildest", untouched, not changed, "real" parts of Greece, as Crete was (and is in parts, still today). In the 60s as well as in the 70s when he finally wrote his book, even in the 90s, you could forget your wallet in a small cafenion of a mountain village and go back a few days later to pick it up. You found villages without electricity and people being poor, but offering you some grapes with a smile, you felt like holding a treasure. You were invited to a village marriage just because you stepped by occasionally. You lost your way and someone brought you to the next place you were heading for - not without inviting you for a coffee or at least a water, or offering some fruit.

So, the "rose-colored patina" was still reality when he wrote his book and hasn't lost its charme in Mani of today. May be he decided not to take part in live of the extremely changing world after WWII but to find a place, where live was still connected to the world he knew and loved before.