Greece - Korina Miller [145]
Restaurant Elysse ( 27310 29896; Paleologou 113; mains €5.50-9.50) This longstanding place offers hearty home cooking, including a couple of Lakonian specialities, such as bardouniotiko (chicken cooked with onions and feta, €7) and arni horiatiki (lamb baked with bay leaves and cinnamon, €7).
Diethnes ( 27310 28636; Paleologou 105; mains €7-9) It’s been going for more than 45 years (as has the decor, it seems), but it’s a no-nonsense local favourite with a garden out the back.
Self-caterers will find a superabundance of supermarkets in Sparta. AB Supermarket (cnr Thermopylon & Gortsologlou), opposite the Sparta Inn, is bigger and better-stocked than most. There’s also a fresh-produce market (Kleomvrotou).
Getting There & Away
Sparta’s well-organised KTEL Lakonia bus station ( 27310 26441; cnr Lykourgou & Thivronos) has buses to Athens (€17.60, 3¼ hours, eight daily) via Corinth (€11.60, two hours), Gythio (€3.90, one hour, six daily), Neapoli (€12.80, three hours, six daily), Tripoli (€4.70, one hour, four daily), Geraki (€3.60, 45 minutes, three daily) and Monemvasia (€9, two hours, three daily).
Travelling to Kalamata (€2.90, one hour, two daily) involves changing buses at Artemisia (€2.90, 40 minutes, two daily) on the Messinian side of the Langada Pass.
Departures to the Mani peninsula include buses to Gerolimenas (€9.30, 2¼ hours, three to six daily) via Areopoli (€6.20, two hours, three to six daily) and a 9am service to the Diros Caves (€7); the return times change.
There are also buses to Mystras (€1.40, 30 minutes, 10 daily). You can catch these on their way out to Mystras at the stop next to the OTE building on Lykourgou, or at the stop on Leonidou.
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MYSTRAS ΜΥΣΤΡAΣ
The captivating ruins of churches, libraries, strongholds and palaces in the fortress town of Mystras (miss-trahss), a World Heritage–listed site, spill from a spur of the Taÿgetos Mountains 7km west of Sparta. The site is among the most important, historically speaking, in the Peloponnese. This is where the Byzantine Empire’s richly artistic and intellectual culture made its last stand before an invading Ottoman army, almost 1000 years after its foundation.
Note: most facilities for the traveller are in Mystras village, a kilometre or so below the ancient site of Mystras.
History
The Frankish leader Guillaume de Villehardouin built the fortress in 1249. When the Byzantines won back the Morea from the Franks, Emperor Michael VIII Paleologus made Mystras its capital and seat of government. Settlers from the surrounding plains began to move here, seeking refuge from the invading Slavs. From this time, until Dimitrios surrendered to the Turks in 1460, a despot of Morea (usually a son or brother of the ruling Byzantine emperor) lived and reigned at Mystras.
While the empire plunged into decline elsewhere, Mystras enjoyed a renaissance under the despots. Gemistos Plethon (1355–1452) founded a school of humanistic philosophy here and his enlightened ideas, including the revival of the teachings of Plato and Pythagoras, attracted intellectuals from all corners of Byzantium. After the Turks occupied Mystras, Plethon’s pupils moved to Rome and Florence, where they made a significant contribution to the Italian Renaissance. Art and architecture also flourished, as seen in the splendid buildings and frescoes of the town.
Mystras declined under Turkish rule, but thrived again after the Venetians captured it in 1687 and developed a flourishing silk industry, the population swelling to 40,000. The Turks recaptured it in 1715 and from then on it was downhill all the way; the Russians burnt it in 1770, the Albanians in 1780 and Ibrahim Pasha torched what was left in 1825. By the time of independence it was a largely abandoned ruin. Much restoration has taken place since the 1950s (and continues to this day) and in 1989 it was declared a World