This is Sparta!

Today we went to Mystras for a few hours and stopped at Sparta for some lunch and frozen yogurt. It was completely different than I expected. When I thought of Sparta, images from 300 and the movie Troy were the first thing I thought of. I halfway expected the education system to still be heavily based on physical fitness, where a lot of people are running around training for some kind of event. And I expected the town to have a lot of ruins in it, dating back to the time where Sparta and Athens were in their prime. Somehow, I even somewhat thought we might see the well where the men kicked the messenger of the king into in the movie 300.

I was more than slightly off. Sparta looked just like a normal town, and you could have driven through there and not known it was Sparta at all. When we got off the bus, a lady asked me where we were from and welcomed me to the city. We ate homemade food cafeteria style at a local restaurant, and had delicious ice cream/gelato just a few stores down. I know, worthy of the warriors of the past. At least we took some really cool pictures by a big statue, so we can say we did something slightly intense.

Mystras was more of what I was expecting when it comes to ancient ruins in a city. Literally the entire city is ruins. We walked through churches and settlements and monasteries and buildings that were hundreds of years old, that have fallen apart almost completely, or some that are still in pretty good condition. It was so beautiful. My roommate Jessica did her group project on the city, so I had heard a lot about it over the last few months from her, and it was so worth the three hour drive to get there. If you ever go to Greece and are interested in the historical aspect of the country, visit this city.