Interlude 5. Mystra and Sparti: September 26-27
We planned our 2024 trip through Greece with breaks throughout, during which we could stay in apartments and live semi-normal lives for a few days between multi-day hikes. Trekking Hellas hikes are extremely well-organized and the hotels are always comfortable and hospitable, but it is tiring to move from place to place every night, and keeping up with laundry can be a challenge.
So every week or two, we’d stop someplace, live in a house, and catch our breaths. We picked our break locations for geographic convenience, historical interest, and nostalgia. These interludes were just as much a part of the trip as the hikes.
When we finished the Menalon Trail, we drove to Sparta. Well, Sparti, as it’s called today.
Driving out of Arkadia into the plain where Sparta lies was like driving from autumn back into summer. The leaves turned from red to green. The shade turned into sunshine. And it got HOT!
To conclude our Pelopponesian hiking sojourn, I’d asked Trekking Hellas to book us into the first night’s accommodation for its E4 Trail Mt. Taygetus. This trip begins in Mystras, which is right down the street from Sparti. The rest of the trek concentrates on summiting the mountain, so it’s much more wilderness-oriented than cultural. We didn’t really need another multi-day climb on top of the Menalon Trail, but we did need to see Sparta.
The key attraction in Mystras is the archaeological site set on a hill above town.
Unlike many of the sites we’ve visited in Greece, this site is Byzantine. It has a Frankish castle dating from the 13th century, a bunch of Byzantine church buildings, and lots of houses.
Mystras looks like it would be a pretty interesting site to wander around. Alas, Chris’ old stress-fracture was hurting, so we gave the main site short shrift and then drove uphill to fly the drone.
The next morning, we headed to ancient Sparta. And… we couldn’t figure out how to get in. For the longest time! Apple Maps kept directing us to a locked back gate.
This was incredibly stupid. We could SEE people strolling around inside. Sparta isn’t even a ticketed site; it’s a public park, and people can just walk in and out.
But that gate kept us out of Sparta no better than the Gates of Thermopylae kepts the Persians out of Greece. After some arguing back and forth and revisiting the same back road, we finally arrived at a more likely location: the statue of Leonidas in the heart of Sparta. And sure enough, the wide-open entrance to the site is behind him to his right.
In keeping with the Spartan tradition, the ancient site is now a popular location to go for a jog. Unusual for Greece, it’s fairly flat; it’s a nice site to visit if you want a break from climbing hills!
It didn’t take too long to get through the site. But we got what we wanted out of this brief interlude, which was just to see where Sparta was located. The fact that it’s in a relatively flat plain is huge; it makes life so much easier when you aren’t constantly trudging up and down mountains! The fierce sunlight would’ve made it super easy to grow crops, and indeed even today the place is awash in a sea of olive trees. We imagined nations of Helots toiling in the olive groves while the Spartiates toiled at their Cross-Fit™ and MMA. Sparta looks like it would’ve been a nice place to live, except for the toiling.
But it was time to head north! We were on our way to Nafplio for a recovery weekend. We took the E961, which might lie on the same route that Leonidas and his 300 Spartans took when they started marching to Thermopylae. But we parted company with them in Tripoli and headed west toward the Argolic Gulf.