After a spartanic meal we bike in Sperte right and 6 km to Mistras, where we look with a cigarette to the castle, high in the hills.
In 13. century francisch knights und byzantic quarreled about control about peloponnes. Prince Guillaume II. de Villehardouin from Archaia took Lakonien, witch he wants to save with three castles: Geraki, Monemvassia and Mystra. Short after this he got in byzantinic bondage und and had to redeem himself with the three castles.
Now
it was bycantinic time, but in the rest of land it was wild. In
Mystra is freedom and economic revival. They trade with wool and
leather from own produktion and also with orint via land. The
population grow to more thausend. The town grow bigger and bigger.Later it becomes the center for Später entwickelte sie sich zu einem Zentrum von science and philosophy.
1460 Mystra was taken by the Türkys. They built some mosques , two churches they made moslemic but the others were untouched. Again Mistras grew till the 18. Jhdt.
In
russian-turky war occupied the castle in 1770 by an expeditions-corps
from the Zaren and was wasted. After them turky-albanic troups
made the rest. They ruined the convents and massacred the population.
At least Mistras was 1824 in the greek clearance war set in fire
from the army Ibrahim Paschas and the people dispelled. Following
bayerisch-wittelsbachische administration had no interese to the
exposure of orthodox abbeys and founded between the ruins of antik
Sparta the new town Sparti. There also lokated people who came
back from Mistras. Since this time the town on the mountain decays.Because of the heat we didn`t like to climb the hill and drive back to Githio and our tent, where we pack our cycles for the next day.
