Friday 13th May 2011 - Mystras, Greece

This is our last day in Mystras and we wanted to see Sparta. The bus took us into the centre and we went to the Town Hall to attempt to get a map that showed the location of the visible archaeological remains. There was no tourist information office but the Municipal Police were extremely helpful and provided us with a good map. We made our way to the Sparta acropolis via the remains of Leonidion, said to be the tomb of Leonidas, the man who with 300 of his Spartan soldiers fought to the death in the pass at Thermopylae against the might of the Persian army in 480 BC. Very little of ancient Sparta can be seen today although it appears that every time that they dig foundations in the modern city some more are revealed. Most of what is visible on the acropolis is Roman, the theatre being the major attraction with its view over the snow-capped Taygetos mountains. We were also able to see the ruins of Mystras sprinkled over the hill below its castle. We had passed a passed a very well equipped nursery / kindergarten / first school on the way and on the way back we saw a group of five to six year olds being marched around the playground, some waving flags. Then they started to chant. This made me think of the rigid discipline of the ancient Spartans and I nearly asked the children whether any of them had been left as children on the mountainside to see if they were tough enough to survive! Jane was very impressed by the amount of play equipment available for the children and we were both impressed by their vocal pet peacock that was strutting around the playground.
The Sparta museum is quite interesting but is very much an old style Greek museum with poorly displayed and very poorly labelled (even in Greek) exhibits. By contrast, we then went on to the Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil run by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation. We weren't sure whether to go to this but we were so glad that we did. It was really interesting and extremely well presented, probably to best that we have seen in Greece. Everything olives and olive oil was covered from varieties, propagation and cultivation of the olive trees to the history of the olive and olive oil, its production, transportation and uses from pre-history to modern times. Well worth a visit.
Photos: The Spartan Roman theatre and the view over olive groves and Sparta to the snow-capped Taygetos mountains; One of many inscribed blocks of the theatre walls – this one starts “Sacred Artemis .....” if anyone can translate the rest, please let me know; Masks from the Temple of Artemis Orthia in Sparta; Reproduction of a prehistoric olive press.