WE ARE SPARTA & Dendra & Midea

 “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

-Will Rogers

Go-Date: Days 29th & 30th – Feb. 20 & 21

Lessons Learned: Renting a car was a blessing. We’ve seen and done far more things driving ourselves than we could have on a bus or guided tour.

Regrets: We wish we could see the family occasionally. Not for long, but a few hours here and there would be nice. Thank goodness for Facetime. We are really excited that Katie and Sean are joining up with us in Athens. I know we’ll have a great time.

Places to go

• Trip to Mystras & Sparti
• Visit Dendra Cemetary and Midea Castle

Trip to Mystras & Sparti

Mystras is a fortified town in Laconia, Peloponnese. Situated on Mt. Taygetos, near ancient Sparta, it served as the capital of the Byzantine Morea in the 14th and 15th centuries. The site has continuously been inhabited throughout all of time. Much of the later era it was under Ottoman control, and of course the Greeks didn’t like that. In the 1830s, it was burned and abandoned and the new town of Sparti was built approximately eight kilometers to the east.

This place is stunning. Close your eyes and think of the Greece in your mind’s eye (not the Acropolis or Santorini…..you tourist) and the hills and olive-covered plains around Sparti is what you imagine. We drove up for a quick view, and after fighting with Google Maps to keep us off goat trails, again, we pulled into Sparti and then pointed the car up the steep, narrow road into Mystras. Our biggest mistake was not leaving the apartment in Nafplion at the crack of dawn as there is much more to see in Mystras than we had time, but it was a very pretty drive and we enjoyed the day none-the-less. Once again Greece has spoiled us with perfect weather.

To get a feel for this area, you need to understand its history and that goes back to pre-historic times. Man has lived here for a long, long time. Long before bronze was a common metal mastered by metal workers. But the ruins that remain are almost all from the medieval times. European control of the area began around 1205 by the Francs, then in 1248, William II of Villehardouin captured Monemvasia in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (the crusaders seem to come, but never leave) then he built the fortress that came to be known as Mystras. In 1259, Willie was defeated by the Byzantines (they were from Nicea). Two years later, the Nicaeans recaptured Constantinople, putting an end to the Latin Empire, restoring the Byzantine Empire, and giving them enough free time to write the Nicean Creed (well, it’s a thought).

The Venetians at one time controlled much of Greece including the Peloponnese, Crete, Corfu, Lefkas, Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Ithaca, Tinos, Mykonos, and several places on mainland Greece including Parga, and even Athens for a short time. All in all, the Venetians owned real estate in Greece for almost two hundred years (in two chunks of time). Unlike the Turks, the Greeks didn’t seem to mind the Venetians all that much and the Peloponnese prospered during this period and architecture with the Venetian influence flourished. All was well until 1460 when Mystras was surrendered to the Ottoman Turks (again) by the Venetians who were called back to Venice due to plumbing issues, and we know how the Greeks feel about Turks.

The Venetians re-occupied Mystras from 1687 to 1715, but otherwise the Ottomans held it till 1821 when they began to lose their stronghold grip upon the country during the Greek War of Independence. Mystras was burned and abandoned under King Otto in the 1830s for the newly built town of Sparti. In 1989 the ruins, including the fortress, palace, churches, and monasteries, were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There are 3 distinctive zones of the Mystras fortress: The Upper City (Ano Chora), the Lower City (Kato Chora) and the Outer City (Exo Chora). The 3 zones vary considerably in altitude and time of construction. Most notably and impressive from below is the Frankish acropolis fortress located at the top of the mountain. We’ve seen a lot of interesting things in Greece, this one ranks up near the top and we’d never even heard of it. I can’t imagine the sights we have yet to see.

Dendra Cemetary

What do you like to do when visiting a foreign country? Well, we like to look at graveyards. Well, not always…..but, sometimes they are so damned interesting. Included in that group is the ancient Mycean burial ground of Dendra. Dendra is a prehistoric (and historic) archaeological site situated outside the village with the same name belonging to the municipality of Midea, Greece which was about 7 kilometers East of our apartment in Nafplion.

The site usage stretches back at least to the early Bronze Age and is significant for the period since archaeologist Axel W. Persson uncovered an unplundered tholos tomb and many Mycenaean chamber tombs, belonging to the Mycaen rulers and shakers from the nearby citadel of Midea. A tholos tomb (or domed tomb), is a grave built with an underground dome (much like an igloo construct). The structure looks much like a beehive, so the traditional English name. Personally, I prefer calling it a tholos tomb since nobody knows what the hell that means (so they nod their heads pretending like they understand completely) and it makes me feel a bit intellectual.

Many of the artifacts uncovered here are on display in the Nafplion Archeological Museum (which we discussed earlier). Getting to Dendra was easy because of the distance, but difficult due to bad signage, bad roads, and pissed off dogs. When we arrived, the road to the site looked like the driveway to a village house (complete with at least 6 dogs and 13 cats). Once out of the car, I do believe the site was in that house’s backyard. But at least they got to keep the olive and orange trees growing there.

As I’ve said before, it was amazing. Ellen and I spent several hours there and we were even allowed to crawl down inside the tombs. Spooky cool! The entire time we were inside the dig we were alone (except for the cats) and had a blast covering every inch of the site since it was relatively small. There was no entrance fee and I’m sure visitation is light even during high season. They calculate that most of the graves here were from around 1200 BC, so roughly 3,200 years ago. If I lived in Greece I think I’d dig up my back yard just to see what might be back there.

Midea Citadel

So where did all those dead nobles buried in Dendra come from? Probably Midea, since its only about 2 kilometers up the road on a hill. In fact, Tiryns is only 4 kilometers away, and Mycenae is about 10 kilometers off in the other direction. This was the center of the Mycenean empire, and home to Agamemnon and all those Greek Troy-busters. (Though Achilles was originally from Myrmidons, part of Thessaly, which is north of Athens close to Thessaloniki). So how he got mixed up with these Myceneans, I have no idea.

Midea was the third in line of power in the region behind Mycenae and Tiryns. So it would be like living in Baltimore knowing that Washington DC and Philadelphia are more important and financially secure. All I can say for any of these sites is, who lifted all these huge rocks.

Tiryns is on low, level ground, but the other two are way up on the tops of hills. Invading armies probably looked up at then and said “Forget it, who wants that place anyway?” Scientists think that these cities also had signal towers in between the citadels so that if they were invaded the alert could be signaled so that Homeland Security could be waiting for them (think of flat-topped pyramids on a smaller scale). Maybe this is what we need to stop those pesky caravans from South America.

The Midea citadel was built atop a hill, which reaches 270 meters above sea level and 170 meters above the surrounding area (very high, but not on a Colorado scale); it was a helluva long way up there and the road was awful for our visit in 2019, so I can imagine it was like in 1200 BC; the citadel dominates the eastern edge of the rich farming valley and is located about half way between Mycenae and Tiryns. We got lost on the way to the citadel, so its not that easy to find, but it was well worth it when we got there. Again, like at Dendra, we were the only visitors to the castle, and there was no entry fee to get in. We liked the price, but sites such as this deserve more attention.

Next, Back to Athens to meet up with Katie & Sean