Mystras

Mystras stands on a spur of Mount Taygetos a few kilometres north-west of modern Sparta, in Laconia. It is one of Greece's most complete medieval towns, a stacked, terraced city of ruined mansions, monasteries and painted churches climbing a steep hillside to a castle at its summit. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1989.

The story begins in 1249, when the Frankish prince William II of Villehardouin built a castle on the peak to control the region. Within little more than a decade the Byzantines had taken it over, and by the mid-fourteenth century Mystras had become the seat of the Despotate of Morea, a provincial capital ruled by members of the imperial family and the last great centre of Byzantine culture. It thrived through the fifteenth century before falling to the Ottomans, and was finally abandoned in the 1830s when the population moved down to the new town of Sparta.

What survives is remarkable. The site divides into an Upper Town, with the Frankish castle and the ruined Palace of the Despots, and a Lower Town of churches and monasteries. The frescoed interiors are the highlight: the cathedral of Agios Dimitrios (the Mitropolis), the churches of the Pantanassa and Peribleptos monasteries, and the elegant Hodegetria all preserve some of the finest late-Byzantine wall painting anywhere. The Pantanassa is still home to a small community of nuns, the only inhabitants of the old city.

Seeing Mystras means walking, and climbing. The site is steep and largely unshaded, with two entrances, an upper gate near the castle and a lower gate by the Mitropolis, so a sensible plan is to start high and work down. Allow at least two to three hours. Most visitors base themselves in Sparta or the village of Neos Mystras at the foot of the hill, which has tavernas and rooms, and treat the site as a half-day excursion.