Mystras: visiting the Byzantine castle town

The short answer

Mystras is a castle town on a steep foothill of Mount Taygetos, north-west of Sparta,[3] and Hellenic Heritage presents it today as one archaeological site with its own museum.[1] It was the seat of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea from the middle of the 14th century,[3] and Hellenic Heritage says it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989.[1] What survives is a whole hillside town: a Frankish castle at the top, two circuits of walls, the Palace of the Despots, town houses, churches and two monasteries.[4]

Hellenic Heritage says the ticket gives access to the archaeological site and the Museum of Mystras,[1] and its official ticket store sells it with a timed entry slot.[2] The contact for the site is the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia.[1]

XTOUR has no destination that serves as a base for Mystras. Visit Greece names Sparta as the starting point,[9] but Sparta is not one of XTOUR's destinations, so XTOUR proposes no base and gives no travel times.

What Mystras was

Both the Ministry of Culture and Sports and Hellenic Heritage credit the castle to the Frankish prince William II Villehardouin. Hellenic Heritage places it in the period after the Crusaders took Constantinople in 1204 and names no year;[1] the Ministry dates the founding to 1249. Both say the castle passed to the Byzantines in 1262.[1][3]

The Ministry says the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine XI Palaeologos, was crowned at Mystras in 1448, and that the hill was captured by the Turks in 1460.[3] Hellenic Heritage adds that from 1460 to 1540 Mystras was the capital of the Ottoman sanjak of the Peloponnese and a centre of silk production and trade.[1] The Ministry records a Venetian period from 1687 to 1715 and says Mystras was among the first castles in Greece liberated in 1821.[3]

The two pages end the story differently. The Ministry says the foundation of modern Sparta by King Otto in 1834 marked the end of the old town's life.[3] Hellenic Heritage says the inhabitants moved to the new town gradually after 1834, and that the last residents left only in 1953, after the Greek state expropriated the site.[1] XTOUR's reading is that 1834 began the decline and 1953 ended habitation.

How the town is laid out

Hellenic Heritage describes walls on two levels that divide the town in two: the Lower Chora, where soldiers and officials lived and where stone-built churches and monasteries survive, and the Upper Chora, with palaces and mansions.[1] Visit Greece uses other names for the same hillside: the Castle at the peak, then Mesochora and Exo Hora.[8]

The Ministry's information page names two gates, the Lower Gate and the Upper Gate, and two ticket offices, one near the main entrance and one at the Palace of the Despots.[5] Hellenic Heritage places the intercity bus terminal near the parking lot of the Lower Gate.[1] XTOUR does not know the walking route or the climb between the two gates.

The monuments inside the walls

The Ministry's description lists the main monuments, with dates for most of them.[4]

The Ministry also notes that St Demetrios has wall paintings in many styles from about 1270/80 to the early 14th century, and that the Hodegetria's paintings are connected to the art of Constantinople.[4] Visit Greece names a third monastery, the Vrontochion, alongside the Peribleptos, and lists the Pantanassa among the churches.[8]

The museum

The Museum of Mystras is inside the archaeological site, according to the Ministry's Directorate of Archaeological Museums, and its exhibition is about the relations between the Byzantine world and the West, using finds from Mystras to show the politics, society, spiritual life and art of the Palaiologan era.[7] Visit Greece says it is housed in a two-storey stone building of 1754.[8]

The ticket wording points the same way from both ends: Hellenic Heritage says the ticket covers the site and the museum,[1] and the Directorate's museum page says the full ticket includes the site.[7]

Tickets, gates and the Palace

Hellenic Heritage's ticket store calls itself the official ticket store for Mystras and says timed entry is required; a ticket is valid for a single entry on the date and time chosen, can be changed up to two hours before the visit, at most twice, and is non-refundable. The same page says access to Hellenic Heritage's Digital Guide app is included, and that large luggage, food and professional photography or filming are not permitted.[2]

The Ministry's page says card payment terminals are at the Lower and the Upper Gate.[5] XTOUR has not read a page that says whether a ticket bought at a gate also carries a time slot.

The Palace of the Despots has its own rule on one day of the week. Under its summer hours, Hellenic Heritage says that on Tuesdays the Palace "is open to visitors from 11:00 until closing time",[1] and the Ministry's information page gives the same rule for the site's summer opening hours. On access for disabled visitors, the Ministry's information page says people with disabilities may reach the Palace of the Despots only in a specially adapted vehicle, on working days and by prior arrangement with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia.[5] XTOUR has not read an accessibility statement for the rest of the site.

Planning it from a base

The Peloponnese sites guide plans Mycenae, Tiryns and Epidaurus from Nafplio; Mystras is not one of the Nafplio sites in XTOUR's planning. Visit Greece's Peloponnese page puts Mystras in Laconia and says Sparta serves as its starting point.[9] Hellenic Heritage lists the Acropolis of Ancient Sparta as a separate site.[1] XTOUR does not say how Mystras combines with any other place in a day.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, prices, free-admission days, accessibility beyond the Palace rule above, or travel times; Hellenic Heritage's Mystras page publishes hours and prices. The Ministry's Odysseus page for the Museum of Mystras still shows summer hours dated 2020,[6] so XTOUR's reading is that the Hellenic Heritage page and its ticket store, not that page, are the ones to check for entry. For the wider reasons a Greek site's opening can change, see what Greek archaeological site opening depends on.

None of the pages XTOUR read says whether any monastery inside the walls is still lived in, so XTOUR says nothing about monastic life at Mystras. For how monasteries in Greece differ as visits, from working communities to monasteries inside an archaeological site, see Greek Orthodox monasteries as visits.