Mystras

On a steep spur of Mount Taygetos above the plain of Sparta, a whole Byzantine city lies stacked up the hillside: churches with brick domes and painted interiors, the ruined Palace of the Despots, mansions, lanes and gates, all crowned by a castle on the summit. Mystras was for two centuries one of the last centres of Byzantine power and learning, and its churches preserve some of the finest late Byzantine painting anywhere.

The city began as a fortress. In 1249 William II of Villehardouin, the Frankish prince of Achaea, built a castle on the hilltop, but after his defeat at the Battle of Pelagonia he was obliged to hand it to the Byzantines in 1262. It became the seat of their governors in the Peloponnese, which they called the Morea, and from 1349 the residence of a despot, usually a close relative of the emperor. Under the despots the town grew down the slope and enjoyed a remarkable flowering of culture; scholars gathered around the Neoplatonist philosopher Gemistos Plethon, who made the despots' capital a magnet for learned men. The Ottomans took Mystras on 30 May 1460. After a Venetian interlude from 1687 to 1715, it suffered heavy destruction in the Orlov Revolt of 1770 and again in 1825 during the War of Independence, and in 1831 its people moved to the newly founded town of modern Sparta below. The ruins were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989.

The churches are the heart of the site. The Metropolis of Saint Demetrios, the cathedral, was built after the Byzantine takeover, and an inscription in it dates a second building phase to 1291–1292; its frescoes span several styles from the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The church of Saints Theodore dates from the 1290s, and the Hodegetria, also called the Aphendiko, from around 1310. The Peribleptos holds a cycle of wall paintings from the second half of the 14th century. The Pantanassa, completed in 1428 for John Frangopoulos, a chief minister of the despotate, mixes Byzantine forms with Gothic touches and an ornately carved stone façade; it is still home to a community of nuns, the only inhabitants of the old city.

Getting there

Mystras lies on the eastern slope of the Taygetos range about 6 km west of modern Sparta, in the Peloponnese. The nearest airport is Kalamata Airport (KLX), about 30 km away in a straight line on the far side of the Taygetos; the road between Kalamata and Sparta crosses the mountains.