Mystras & Sparta

While staying in Arfara, we took a day trip to visit Mystras. R says that this might be his favourite archeological city that he’s visited.

Mystras

History: The city was built around a castle that was erected on top of a mountain in 1249. The town was added to by the Byzantines and then the Ottomans, and then the Venetians, and then abandoned in 1832. (if you want to read more about its history, you can see this UNESCO page). The city was built from the mountain heading downwards. There was a palace built at the halfway point, and there are tons and tons of churches and monestaries.

Needless to say, there are a lot of stairs and it takes quite a bit of effort to visit the site. There are two entry gates and many people suggest you do the churches at the bottom first and then drive up to the top and visit the final church and the palace (the castle is currently closed). BUT, we decided to walk it all! So we started at the bottom and then went up to the monestary. At that point, we decided that we were almost at the same elevation as the palace so we just kept going… And then from the palace we kept walking up to the final church. We then walked all the way back down and then drove the car up to the top gate to have dinner and watch the sunset. It was a lot of walking up and down stairs and my hips and knees weren’t happy with me by the end. Unfortunately, the photos don’t quite do the elevation justice.

The monestary of Pantanassa (which is almost halfway up the mountain) is still a working convent and there were a couple of nuns hanging out in the cloisters while we were there. I imagine that they don’t venture out that often or they are extremely fit old ladies to be walking up and down all those stairs! The palace houses the museum which was quite intereactive and interesting.

Sparta

We visited Sparta right after Mystras as they are close together, but by the time we arrived in Sparta is was around 9:30 pm. The archeological site was closed, but it seems like there is not much left to see anymore anyway. There were lots of people out having dinner and socialising when we visited.

On the way back home there was a fire just off the highway near the tollbooth!