Continued Tour of the Peloponnese

This is me standing at the top of the fortress at Mystras we climbed this morning 15 minutes outside of Sparta.

Last night we took a bus ride out to a tiny restaurant next to natural springs for dinner. It was a beautiful night and the scenery was very picturesque, it even had a mini waterfall and many spouts where you could fill up your own waterbottle! We ordered family syle again and got mini cheese pies, tzatziki, greek salad, and pasta carbornara. Once again, delcious.

This morning we got up and took a bus ride to a settlement called Mystras that was occupied in the 12th century AD by the Byzantinians. This was very interesting to me because many of the buildings and the castle were very well preserved so you could actually see what it looked like! We hiked up to the top and looked out at the beautiful view and then made our way down looking and being lectured on the different architecture.

My favorite part was the churches we saw. They are Byzantine Greek Orthodox churches and they are quite different from Western churches. Just about every square inch of the insides were painted with many iconographic scenes. We learned the layout of a Greek Orthodox church is supposed to resemble a cross with a large dome in the middle of the two pieces.

The scenes painted included the crucifixtion, Jesus' baptism, birth of Jesus, the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus, raising of Lazarus, the reserection, doubting Thomas, etc. The side walls of the church are painted with the different saints in temporal order going clockwise around the inside. There are three sections in the church: one for the unbaptized, one for the baptized, and one for the priests. You are only allowed in the section to which you belong.

Something else that I found interesting were these mini silver and gold offerings people would leave when they are awaiting healing. This comes from the ancient pagan practice of leaving mini pottery pieces in the shape of the body part that ails them. They would leave it as an offering to Asclepius, the god of healing. This tradition continues today but it is for Jesus. The churches were just beautiful and it was a very emotional experience seeing the many painted scenes. There are still active nuns that live at the site but unfortunately we didn't see any :(

After we were done we got on the bus and drove about an hour to eat at this tiny little restaurant up in the mountains. This restaurant had no menus, the waitress just came out and told us what they had. It was very different than anything I've experienced but I liked it! I got my staple Greek Salad and an ice cream bar for dessert. Then we got back on the bus and drove to Pylos, where we're staying for the night.

Not sure what our plans are for the evening but I'm sure exploring is in our future!