Ancient Greece

Setting off early, after calling for our friends, we headed for Mystras to explore the ruins of the medieval town. The weather has been absolutely perfect for the last week and we did wonder whether or not it would break today, but we were lucky. Just throw in a bit of history here: Guillaume II de Villehardouin built the castle of Mystras in 1249 high on a hill. Below the Frankish castle lie the old upper and lower town.

The sun shone on us as we walked among the ruins, exploring the monastery and churches, up and down many steps, taking in the history.

After the liberation of Greece in 1834 the population of Mystras moved to the newly formed town of Sparta. We left the “City of Ruins” at 3pm, when the site closed, and headed for Sparta. The city of Sparta is just 7 kilometres from Mystras and has a very spacious feel to it with wide streets and palms planted in the centre. The thing that was most noticeable for me was the fact that everywhere was so clean. To save backtracking we decided to do a round trip and drive down to Gythio. We broke the journey at Areopolis where we stretched our legs and explored the market town. From there it was a relatively short journey from the south of the Mani to home where we arrived tired but happy after our lovely day.