What an amazing place. It’s 3500 years old built on a massive hill with walls several metres thick. Here’s the Lion Gate entrance.
Lion Gate
The excavations discovered these ‘beehive’ tombs with shafts going into the ground and a conical roof. This one is the tomb of Clymenestra surrounded by all sorts of beautiful artefacts. She murdered her husband Agamemnon then she and her lover were then killed by her two children.
Entrance to ‘beehive’ tomb
Evidently the potters wheel was introduced in the 3rd millennium changing the nature of pottery and some of the pieces in the museum are wonderful.
(As an aside the owners of campsite where we’re now staying at Delphi who also produce olive oil have very old olive trees which they say are 3,000 years old!!!! )
An extraordinary place well worth a visit. There are Byzantine ruins on the top of the rock and a very beautiful town on the south side which has no vehicles. It’s composed of narrow winding streets and lots of steps going up up up. The countryside around is full of olive trees producing delicious olive oil.
A wonderful walk to the second most southerly point of mainland Europe. Parked the van on a lay by and set off following our walking book. A good day for walking – a bit cloudy. We set off early to do the walk in the morning and then drive on to Monemvasia in the afternoon (more of that in another post).
Guess who with lighthouse of Cape TainaroOn the way
Mosaics near the Cape
Went on a great walk yesterday. We got the early bus to Sotiranika from Stoupa then walked across the gorge ate our sandwiches in Kambos under a shady tree in the plateia and then followed tracks back down to Kardamyli where Valerie had a swim. Didn’t go wrong too many times but it always takes us twice as long as the book says
This is for our camper van / motorhome friends who have LPG tanks.
We found we couldn’t put any gas in. We knew from the monitor that it needed some but the pump thought it was already full. After phoning various people in England for advice the conclusion was that if the outside temperature is very hot (it was about 30 C) the temperature of the van’s tank is greater than the pump tank, so the pump thinks the van is full. We went into the mountains where it was 19C and could fill the tank with no problem.
So … if you have problems filling your LPG tank because of the heat either go up a mountain, or try early morning.
Spending a few days in the campsite at Stoupa ( the only campsite down this coast – fortunately it’s fine) and went for a walk in the hills today. In the village of Kastania found an amazingly beautiful 1000 year old Byzantine church – Agios Petros.
Agios Petros in Kastania
And inside it was stunning. The first amazing thing was that it was unlocked and then it was covered in beautiful frescos!
It’s amazing to realise that this is how all these churches would have been
As we travel around I continually realise how little I know about so many things. We’ve just spent a day in Mystras an amazing ruined Byzantine city with a castle perched on top of a hill. Know about the Byzantine empire? Well I didn’t.
A very quick history lesson – whilst the western Roman Empire came to an end in AD476 when the last emperor of Rome was executed, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) continued until AD1204. It started when the Roman emperor Constantine I founded Constantinople (Istanbul) in AD330. The Byzantines made Mystras into their second city and this was maintained into the 15th century even though the knights of the Fourth Crusade and other Franks (any foreigner from NW Europe) had sacked Constantinople and taken over part of the Peloponnese.
The churches in Mystras and throughout this area of the Peloponnese have a very distinctive style and architecture, and internally and are filled with amazing frescos.
We stayed in a nearby campsite called Castle View and walked to the old Mystra site. There are two entrances and I recommend entering at the top ‘Fortress’ entrance as then you walk slowly down. If you entered at the Main entrance you’d have to walk up and would probably run out of legs before getting to the castle. It is a fantastic site and we spent the whole day there wandering around looking at the castle, houses, churches etc
