Monemvasia on Peloponnese peninsula

3 April 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Katsikas pantelis/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Katsikas pantelis/cc-by-sa-4.0

Monemvasia is a town and municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a tied island off the east coast of the Peloponnese, surrounded by the Myrtoan Sea. The island is connected to the mainland by a tombolo 400 metres (1,300 ft) in length. Its area consists mostly of a large plateau some 100 m (330 ft) above sea level, up to 300 m (980 ft) wide and 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) long. Founded in the sixth century, and thus one of the oldest continually-inhabited fortified towns in Europe, the town is the site of a once-powerful medieval fortress, and was at one point one of the most important commercial centres in the Eastern Mediterranean. The town’s walls and many Byzantine churches remain as testaments to the town’s history. Today, the seat of the municipality of Monemvasia is the town of Molaoi.   read more…

Mystras in Lakonia

23 September 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  5 minutes

Mystras and Sparta plain © Bgabel/cc-by-sa-3.0

Mystras and Sparta plain © Bgabel/cc-by-sa-3.0

Mystras is a fortified town and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Sparti, of which it is a municipal unit. Situated on Mt. Taygetos, near ancient Sparta, it served as the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in the 14th and 15th centuries, experiencing a period of prosperity and cultural flowering. The site remained inhabited throughout the Ottoman period, when it was mistaken by Western travellers for ancient Sparta. In the 1830s, it was abandoned and the new town of Sparti was built, approximately eight kilometres to the east.   read more…

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