Travel Journal

2002-11-06

Wet

Anyway, we did eventually get to Mystras at 1:00, giving us 2 hours to explore before it closed at 3:00. Mystras is a fabulous late Byzantine fortress city, built onto the side of a hill with the fortress at the top. We only had the time and energy to see the lower part of the city, where there are several typical Byzantine churches that are in fairly good repair. I was glad I had my flashlight to look at some of the frescoes!

In one of the churches, we noticed that people had placed small metal tablets below an icon of the madonna and child; the tablets often portrayed a body part, which presumably the person who placed it there was hoping would be cured. We've seen this in a couple of other churches here in Greece, and John finds it interesting that so far they've been associated with an icon of Mary, rather than of Christ or another saint.

The museum at the site was very small, but had an extremely interesting set of exhibits on clothing of the 13th - 15th centuries in Mystras, including a set of acorn-shaped buttons.

Unfortunately, as we were at the highest point of our visit and about to head back, it started to rain, and this rapidly evolved into a downpour. I had an umbrella, but John didn't, and even with an umbrella, I got pretty soaked on the way back down the hill to the bus stop. We stood under an overhang at the restaurant for about half an hour before the bus arrived, and got back to Sparta around 4:00. Since the bus back to Tripoli was at 5:00, we headed to the bus station, got a snack, and waited for the bus. It was extremely confusing, because many of the buses were unmarked, as were the slips, and there wasn't much in the way of announcing either. We did eventually find our bus, only to be told (along with two people who'd ridden with us in the morning) that we couldn't board the bus until everyone who was headed to Athens was already on board. The other women said something to each other which I took to be a suggestion that if we didn't get on board the bus, the 4 of us should get a taxi together. We did get to ride the bus in the end, so now John and I are hanging out at the hotel and working up our courage to go back out into the rain and find some dinner..."

Mystras