Greece - Mystras

In the year of 1249 the French crusader “Guillaume II de Villehardouin” built a fortress on a spur of Mount Taygetos, that came to be known as Mystras. At the foot of the fortress the inhabitants of Sparta soon settled - counting on the protection of the bourgeois - creating a new town.

Ten years later “De Villehardouin” was captured by the Byzantines and as a ransom he had to hand over his possessions in the Mórea - as the Peloponnesos was then called - to Emperor Michaël Palaeologos. Mystras came under Byzantine rule and the city expanded rapidly. In its heyday there were 42.000 people living in the walled city. From 1350 to 1460 it was the residence of the Byzantine governor - called the despot - who was always the son or brother of the reigning emperor. The despots of the Despotate of the Morea decorated the city with churches, monasteries and palaces and made Mystras a centre of culture, where the decline of Constantinople was followed at a safe distance. In 1448 the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine XI Palaeologos, was crowned here.

From 1460 to 1687 the Ottomans ruled, then the Venetians (1687 - 1715) and then again the Ottomans (1715 - 1821). The city had to endure several sieges, but the fatal blow came in 1770. During the chaos that followed the Orlofika - a Greek uprising on the Peloponnesos against Ottoman rule - the Turks sent out unregulated Albanian hordes to teach the Greeks a lesson. These looting gangs also entered Mystras and destroyed the city. This looting and the devastation during the Greek War of Independence meant the end of Mystras. Most of the inhabitants then moved to (new) Sparta, which had been built by order of the first Greek king Otto I.

Nowadays Mystras is a late Byzantine ghost town, although it also has a monastery where still nuns are living. The palace and quite a lot of churches are beautifully restored and without any doubt worth a visit. In 1989 the ruins, including the fortress, palace, churches, and monasteries, were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.