‘Secret-seeming’ promises quiet landings of a boat shingling onto a beach, or morning departures. ‘Combe’ is curious in the context of Greece, as it sounds quintessentially English, even its sound capturing something of the cool of the climate. So in the Mani, it might provide unexpected shelter from the dazzling sunlight.
‘The path from Alika sank into a deep ravine which ended in a quiet and secret-seeming combe.’
Source: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, introduction by Michael Gorra, New York: New York Review of Books, 2006 (1958), p. 138
