Mystras and Nafpoli

 

Sunday June 4, day 9 of our Greece tour. 

We headed out of Monemvasia this morning for a 2 hour ride towards the archeological site of the medieval town of Mystras.   This is one of the best preserved Byzantine cities and is a UNESCO site.  They were very specific to say that it was not rebuilt, that it was restored.  As an aside,  the Byzantine empire is just the name that they gave to describe the Roman Empire.   The site was on a steep hill (very steep and rocky) which made it well defensible.  It had 3-4 well preserved Byzantine churches, a palace and even a currently occupied monastery with a few nuns.  The nuns welcomed us with Turkish delights.  Christine thought that some of the site looked a lot like she would picture overgrown Cair Paravel from the Narnia books, and when the nun gave us Turkish delight, it was pretty ironic.  The  town was established during the 4th crusades and most of the buildings were from the 5th and 6th century AD.  The economy here was based on a silk economy, from silk worms stolen from China. While most people left the town in the mid 1800’s, there were some still living here until it was converted to an archeological site in 1953. (Except for the nuns). 

After Mystras we headed to Sparta Greece for lunch.  I expected Sparta to be very touristy, but it definitely was a regular working town and we soon headed to our next stop for 2 nights…..the old capital of Greece…..Nafplio.  

The first night in Nafplio, before finding dinner, we enjoyed a wine and ouzo tasting at a local wine shop from a wine sommelier.   

Some info about Nafplio- During the Middle Ages Nafplio was called Anapli.  The Venetians, during the first period of their dominion over the region of Argonafplia (1839-1540), called the city "Anambolou". During the second period (1695-1715), they established Nafplio as the capital city of the region of Romania and they changed its name to Napoli di Romania, that is the city of "Napoli of Romania". It is worth adding that both the names of "Napoli" and “Nafplio" mean "the city of seamen", and the name “Romania" means  Greece.   

Mary 

This was our travel route for the day. We started in the bottom right corner. 

The next several pictures are from the Mystras archeological site.  You will see it sits up on a steep hill, dare I say a small mountain! 

Church of St Sophia.  Sophia meant wisdom.

Christine pretending she was in Narnia.

Byzantine church in honor of Mary.

You can see how high up we were visiting this site. The town stretches to the valley. 

Treacherous steps all thru the site!

The pictures above and below are the palace in Mystras.

A lot of the ruins that weren’t restored were overgrown and looked fabulous. Narnia anyone? 

Another look at how high this town was built.

Church courtyard 

Christine meeting the nun that has lived in the monastery here since the early 60s.  She was handing out Turkish delight candy as a welcome.

The next several pictures were from inside the Byzantine churches.  

Frescos on the walls of the churches.

You know who these 2 are. 

Original tile floor in the church of Sophia. 

Offerings to Mary.  The people in many towns in Europe use small tin plates depicting what they are thankful for and that is what is hanging all over the wall to the left. 

Inside of a typical Byzantine church from the 1400-1500s.

It was hot and dry and lots of stones around, but this is the only lizard guy that I saw. 

Walking towards the lower town.

Creepy statue on last church we saw as we were exiting Mystras…… on to Sparta for lunch! 

This statue was in Sparta, people came along and touched it’s feet.  We didn’t know why, but we did it anyway.  

The Spartan was King Leonidas.

Welcome to Nafpoli at our hotel.  They served us fresh from their groves, oranges and homemade lemonade.

View of Nafpoli from our hotel.

Wine tasting in Nafplio.  We tried 5 wines, ouzo and tsipouro.  We liked all but the tsipouro.

Nafpoli town square at night-called Syntagma. 

Nafpoli shopping area at night.  The stores were all still open at 930pm.