Greece - Laconia - On The Trail Of The Spartans (80/151)

Greece - Laconia - On The Trail Of The Spartans (80/151)

Asceticism and drill formed the legendary warriors' caste of the Lacedaemonians. Over 2,500 years ago they made Sparta an invincible military power. Unlike Athens, ancient Sparta was never fortified. The city therefore seemed rather rural and provincial, after its downfall nothing remained to testify to its former power. The modern Sparta of today emerged literally from nothing in the nineteenth century, the antique city having fallen into ruins towards the end of the Middle Ages. Bavarian architects designed the new ideal city on the drawing board. For after the Greeks' struggle for liberation from the Turks, the European protecting powers had made a Bavarian the first King of Greece in 1835. Parallel to the decline of Sparta, from the 13th century on, the city of Mistra emerged in its immediate vicinity. Founded by a Franconian crusader, later a stronghold of Byzantine culture on the Peleponnese, this is still a place of unique historical attraction for the traveller. Here the last Emperor of Byzantine was once crowned, and Goethe's Faust wandered through Mistra's ruins at the side of the beautiful Helena. Other destinations well worth visiting are the coastal city of Monemvasia and the Mani peninsula: its southernmost point is Cape Ténero, once believed by the Greeks to be the entrance to the underworld.