Baked Hills and Band Tshirts make New Friends

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Monemvasia and Mystras - Day 6

Friday 13th September

After having last night's leftovers for breakfast we said goodbye to the lady at our hotel, the Kritikos Apartments, who gave us a large bunch of grapes fresh from some nearby farm as a parting present.

We drove over the causeway to Monemvasia which is rather like Mont St Michel in France. It's also known as the Gibraltar of Greece, but as I have never been to Gibraltar, I cannot compare. It rises to 350 meters above sea level and had a population of 50,000 back in the 15th Century when it was in its prime. There is one drivable road wrapped around the rock that you don't want to drop over the edge unless you have a car that is also a boat. One side of the road is parked up with cars.

The entrance is an archway and the cobbles start here. There are no vehicles, not even a bike, just pedestrians, a few dogs and LOTS of cats. The narrow and shady streets are lined with expensive restaurants, bars and boutiques. There are courtyards and churches, private homes and holiday places to rent. We had chosen not to stay on the rock itself as we heard it was very expensive and I'm also glad we didn't because it's a long walk from the nearest place you can park; a walk made tougher if you're dragging heavy suitcases over the large and very irregular cobbles.

We walked up and up (again!! All the sites in Greece are atop large and baked hills). We passed quieter residential areas including new buildings that were in the style of the old. The further up we went, the more random abandoned buildings there were, with signs outside them telling us what they used to be.

Eventually we came to the upper town which, as always, was abandoned. The last person left in 1911. I wonder how many times I've used the word 'abandoned' in my Greece blogs? The upper town goes right up to the summit of the hill with remnants of buildings, including the church of Agia Sofia which is the best preserved building of the sight and has been through a variety of religious conversions throughout it's existence. The vegetation was stubby, mostly dead, and very brown and brittle. We'd arrived in Monemvasia at 9.30 am and reached the summit just after 11am, this includes lots of photo stops and cat fussing time. Glyn finally got to see some lizards, about four in total.

There were only a few stray tourists at the top and we sat in the shade looking down at our hotel from the previous night, wishing we'd thought to bring some water. The walk down was via various ruins on the other side of the rock and when we got back to civilisation, we were so damn thirsty! I tell you, if ever Glyn and I get robbed and left to die in a desert by bandits, we would be totally adapted to survive long enough for a rescue - and it will be more like a holiday if we have to walk up steep hills too. We bought water from a small gift shop, everywhere else sold jewellery and ornaments, but nothing useful. The cafes though quaint, were pricey.

At our car we tucked into the delicious grapes from our hotel and headed back towards Sparta. On the way we stopped at a Lidl which was laid out exactly the same as it is home. There was one shopper who rode off on his motorbike wearing socks and sandals and yes, that tickled me.

We stopped for petrol and in Greece, you still get served at the pump. This was the cheapest petrol we'd seen at about €1.65 per litre. The guy at the pump said he was from Australia but Glyn still struggled understanding him. Glyn was bemoaning the price of fuel in Greece as it's more expensive than the UK, this is probably why the roads are so empty. The petrol attendant agreed and said that none of this money went into the people's pockets, there are 100 rich people in Greece who have all the money and the rest are dirt poor.

We passed through the lovely (not) Sparta again and turned off to Mystras. Now as we got close to the tiny town nestled at the base of mountains, one peak in particular towered over it, capped with castle type ruins. Oh yeah, it's a hot hill, that must be where we are going.

It was getting on for 3pm, but the site was open until 7.30, so hopefully enough time to see it all. Mystras was founded in 1249 and soon became a town of 20,000, so it's big.

Fortunately there is a road that can be driven up a lot of the way. But after paying the €5 each entrance fee, Glyn was informed of our long uphill trek to the citadel at the top as I was busy fussing a very friendly cat. This is another huge site of more than one area. Naturally it has been abandoned a long time and is in ruins, although in better condition than most of the places we have been to.

It was fairly empty of tourists, but we passed a couple of Germans who had to stop me because I was wearing a Jello Biafra t-shirt and the lady loves him. She even had the Alternative Tentacles bat logo tattooed just below the back of her neck (this is the logo of Jello's own independent record label). turns out she went to see him in London on the same tour I went to see him in Frankfurt! (there is a blog on this btw!). She asked to take my photo because meeting other Jello fans whilst walking up an Ancient Greek site is not what you expect.... or maybe you do? You have to be pretty cultured to follow Jello Biafra I'm sure!

Band t-shirts often make new friends, however brief. Glyn had a German exclaim 'Rammstein' at him yesterday at Mycenae and I presume that this was because of his t-shirt.

The top of the castle was well, castle like, with steps and walls to climb and interesting bits to go in and out of. The only barriers were the odd bit of weather worn rope loosely tied to rusty metal rods driven into the crumbly ground. After the Germans, we saw just one other tourist at the top.

We wended our way down through the slippery rock paths to look at other buildings and churches with fragments of paintings still visible on the walls. It started getting cooler at times with the odd gust of wind. I found the tiniest of boney kittens who was drinking out of a pool that was more like jellied mud. I wish I had something to give to it, but at least it did start playing, chasing wasps, so hopefully he wasn't too starving.

There was a a lot to see in the upper half and it took over two hours, but then you drive down to the other gate and there's more! We had to rush to get to some Church at the other end at it shut at 5.45pm and it sounded interesting in the guide book. It certainly had a lot better and less damaged wall paintings than the other churches and part of it was cut into a cave. We meandered around the rest of the site for an hour or so, poor Glyn was desperate for the loo as it turned out the only facilities were outside the gate (I'm afraid I went amongst the ruins in the castle, there's no way my bladder could have held out this long from Monemvasia).

We left the site at just before 7pm and of course the loos were down several flights of slippery stone steps. Just what we needed. When I sat down on the loo, I was so glad of the rest, I didn't want to get back up. We were very tired: attempting two large sites such as Monemvasia and Mystras in one very hot day took a bit of endurance!

Driving through the tiny town of Mystras, we only saw two places that had rooms, plus one expensive hotel and nowhere to park. Just outside the town was saw a sign that said 'rooms' and went to see. It is a campsite called Castle View and the guy didn't speak much english, but it's just €30 for a room. The room being a stand alone simple chalet that has three single beds, a table, two chairs and not much else. There is aircon though. Nearby is a shower and toilet block and they do have a pool! There's a few caravans here and it's quiet.

The guy asked if we wanted to eat in the 'restaurant', I could see a communal area with tables and chairs, no doubt it's the same guy or his wife that cooks. No worries though, because we had stuff from Lidl. We sat outside, next to our car dining on stuffed vine leaves, olives and I think Glyn had tuna and some other dead animal. Looking up, we could see Mystras Castle lit up on the mountain looking back down at us. It's only 9.30pm and Glyn is already sleeping, so I must finish my warm Mythos beer and join him.

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Photos

Monemvasia
A bit like Mont St Michel