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Archaeological site · Mystras, Sparta, Peloponnese

Mystras

Μυστράς · Βυζαντινή Καστροπολιτεία Μυστρά

Mystras is the archaeological site of a Byzantine castle-town on a hill above the Eurotas valley near Sparta in Laconia, Peloponnese, with its churches, monasteries, palace and a site museum.

Why go

Mystras grew around a castle founded on the hilltop by Prince William II Villehardouin after 1204, which the Franks surrendered to the Byzantines in 1262; Hellenic Heritage, the Ministry of Culture's heritage platform, describes the uphill settlement inside walls on two levels, the Lower Chora for soldiers and officials and the Upper Chora with palaces and mansions, and many surviving churches and monasteries. The same page says the Byzantine period ended with the surrender to the Ottomans in 1460, that the last residents left in 1953 after the site was expropriated by the Greek state, and that Mystras was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989. Hellenic Heritage's ticket covers the archaeological site and the Museum of Mystras, and it lists the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia as the contact. This record is the castle-town site, not the modern village of Mystras.

Near Mystras