Greek Islands

Mystras

Mystras: The Palace and the Museum

Welcome to Mystras!

Magnificent, spectacular, a glorious place, Mystras (or Mistras - 5 Km northwest of Sparti) is one of the most exciting cities in Peloponnese. Standing still in time, the dead city lies on the slope of the sheer, strange hill with the fortress at its top. The whole of Mystras is an open-air museum, a reminder of a glorious era of power and culture. Its fortifications and churches, its palaces and mansions, its roads and fountains, charm thousands of visitors daily and offers them valuable insights in the evolution and culture of the Byzantines.

For two centuries Mystras was at the forefront of developments and had a brilliant history full of glory, splendor and political, social and cultural contributions. Its story begins in the mid-13th century when the Franks were dominant in the Peloponnese. In 1249 Villehardouin II built an impregnable fortress at the top of a hill called Mystras or Mizithras. Ten years later, Villehardouin found himself a prisoner of the Byzantine Emperor Michael Paleologus and bought his freedom by handing over the fortresses of Mystras, Monemvasia and Maina.

Mystras offered security, so that the inhabitants of neighbouring Lacedaemonia, as Sparti was then called, made their homes on the slopes surrounding the fortress. The settlement and the Hora (town) were protected by a wall, but the new houses were built outside the enclosure. Another wall protected the new settlement, Kato Hora. Mystras became in the mid-14th century the capital of the Peloponnese and the seat of the Seignioly (Despotate) of the Moreas, with a ruler or despot who enjoyed a tenure for life.

Mystras is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Traveler's Information

Photo Gallery

Mystras: Aghia Sophia [Holy Wisdom] Byzantine Church

Mystras: General View as seen from the fortress on top of the hill above.

Mystras: The Walls

Mystras Church of Evangelistria

Mystras Modern Street

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