Mystras rises on the slopes above Sparta, and for a couple of centuries it was one of the most important places in the Byzantine world.
Franks, then Byzantines
The Frankish watch-towers went up in the middle of the thirteenth century. The Byzantine emperor took the site back in 1261, and what followed was the building programme that gives the hillside its shape today.
The churches
The Metropolis dates from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Above and around it stand the Aphendiko, the Peribleptos and the Pantanassa, and between them they hold some of the best surviving Byzantine wall painting anywhere in Greece.
Wear proper shoes. The site is steep and there is a great deal more of it than you expect.
