Sept. 4

Photo: Me at the Convent at Mystras

Day 08 September 4

Today we arrived in Sparta. We stopped by at Tiryns, a prehistorical site, and Mystras which was a thriving town in the middle ages. Mystras was very cool. There are four or five churches in the site along with two working monasteries. I stumbled into one of the monasteries on accident. It was so beautiful. I got seperated from the group because I wanted to check out the churches and they wanted to check out the fortress. Then I couldn't find my way out. I kept going downhill thinking that eventually I would find the exit. I was a bit late to get onto the bus. We checked into our hotel in Sparta and then went to the ancient acropolis of Sparta. There’s not much there. There looked like there was a large portion of the acropolis that was still buried. We spent a long time talking about the reasons why Sparta hasn’t been excavated as much as some other sites. It’s very sad. The modern Sparta is surprisingly small.