12. Sparta
Let the Warrior Fantasies Begin
Sparta
Ah, Sparta! Home of the legendary Spartan warriors, which means a lot of things to a lot of people. I was fascinated by the culture and history of this city-state as well as their long running beef with Athens over who would be the dominate power in the ancient world.
And then I saw the movie “300”. If you haven’t already seen it, this movie is the most masculine, man-driven, man-based fantasy for men that one can find on the Spartan world.
It’s especially gory (of course), but what really drew my attention was the all-male cast of incredibly buff actors wearing nothing but capes and leather Speedos. Now that’s some quality cinema, right there folks! I am not ashamed to admit that I watched it twice. More than twice. Ok, I am ashamed to admit it. But damn, those guys were hot. All those perfectly sculpted chests and abs…
I almost gave it a miss this time because I had plotted a route on GPS and it said it would take 6 hours to drive from Olympia to Sparta and that seemed a bit out of the way. But then I thought there had to be something wrong with that calculation because crossing the whole country was only a couple of hours, so I looked again and sure enough, 6 hours was the time it would take to do the whole trip. Turns out, Sparta was only 2 hours from Olympia. Off to Sparta!
I was a little disappointed to discover there was 100% fewer shirtless men in Speedos wandering about, but I enjoyed my time there anyway. Sparta sits in the Eurotas Valley, between Mt. Taygetus and Mt. Parnon. This area is a natural fortress, surrounded on all sides by high mountains. The landscape was gorgeous and being at elevation, was cooler than the lowlands. The city itself was lovely and I had accidentally scored another fabulous hotel!
I managed to find my hotel without too much difficulty (no thanks to Brenda, my GPS nemesis), nabbed a parking spot right outside and checked in. The sweet young man at the desk was chatting with me and I commented that he had an American accent when he spoke English. He put his hand on his chest and said, “I’m a Canadian at heart.” He was adorable.
I got the key and went back to retrieve my now lighter, but still pretty heavy luggage from the car. I pulled the suitcase/backpack combo up onto the sidewalk and the fucking handle broke off in my hand!!!!
It was the extending handle that broke. The top part snapped off, leaving the extending parts sharp, pointy and still extended with no way to push them back down. How was I supposed to get this suitcase anywhere without being stabbed? If I couldn’t collapse that handle, I wouldn’t be able to take it on the plane or put it in the car. In .2 seconds, I was royally fucked. Royally. And not in a good way.
I managed to use the broken part of the handle to collapse the arms into the suitcase, so at least I could move it without impaling myself or others. But I still had the problem of making it move. I managed to carry all that shit to the hotel, and the nice young man helped me get it up to my room. I had a couple of days before I would need to move again, so I decided to sit on the balcony and ponder my options.
The easiest thing would have been to just chuck it and buy a new suitcase, but I was very reluctant to do that. I had bought that suitcase for the trip to Europe that the girls and I took when Veronica graduated from high school, so I had owned it for a while. It was a sturdy little thing, it fit the international carry-on baggage limits and it had smooth, hard sides so I could put stickers from my travels on it.
That was the entire reason I chose that particular suitcase — I recall from my youth watching Bugs Bunny carrying his vintage suitcase with the location stickers on it. I thought that was so cool. That suitcase has been around the world with me. It’s a member of the family, at this point.
Also, I was loathe to give it up because it’s a Tumi and the Tumi brand is quite expensive. Great quality, but yeah — pricey. I was texting a friend that afternoon about my luggage woes and she told me that Tumi has a lifetime warranty. WHAT??? They can fix my little friend? I don’t have to abandon it here?
Oh, what welcome news! All I had to do then was somehow get it from Sparta to the Tumi store in Athens. Ok, that’s doable. I would be dropping the car at the Athens airport and taking a cab to the hotel, so it’s not like I would have to carry it the whole way. I just needed to rig up some kind of strap to pull it around until then. I went down the street on a recon mission — find a strap, of some kind.
And wouldn’t you know it? I ran smack into a Chinese counterfeit store at the end of the block. Perfect! Also, I am not being racist, the goods were indeed made in China. No assumptions here.
These kinds of stores line the streets in San Francisco and they have a little bit of every item every created in any part of the world. At great prices too!
That’s because they’re counterfeit. Grab yourself a PRAGA bag, or a nice GUCCY scarf. They look pretty close to the real thing but will fall apart the minute you attempt to use them.
There were also knock off Tumi bags, but those were ultra-cheap and I didn’t want to trade a suitcase with a broken handle for one that the handle AND the wheels would break off before I got it out of the store.
But they did have a selection of cheap purses with detachable straps, which might work. I picked out a COUCH bag and took it up to the counter. Hanging on the wall, however, was the perfect strap! It was wider and sturdier looking than the cheap purse strap. It might be a guitar strap? Anyway, it would do the job at a third of the price. Thank you counterfeit store! I was in business.
Luggage sorted, I was ready to attend to my adventure.
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The city of Sparta is lovely. It was clean, not crowded, not polluted. Everyone was very nice. I went for a stroll on the main street after I was settled and noticed that I was the only one out there. Also, the shops and restaurants were closed. Did I miss something? An evacuation notice, perhaps?
After a little more walking, I returned to the hotel and asked my Greek-Canadian friend at the front desk if there had been an air raid before I arrived.
Nope, just the standard close the city between 2:30 and 5:30 PM thing. Oh, in that case, time for a nap?
The Castle Mystras
I decided to visit the ancient town and fortification of Mystras at the suggestion of Rosalie from Belgium. This was the last site she visited before falling down and wrenching her ankle. She said it was magnificent. I was down for a little magnificence. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site and I’m always down for a little world heritage.
The fortification was built in 1249 as a Frankish outpost for William II of Villehardouin, the ruler of the Frankish Principality of Achea. It was then and is still a stunning bit of architecture. The fortress is built on a spur of rock jutting out from the slope of Mt. Taygetus, towering over the Eurotas valley.
The Franks and the Byzantines were scrapping over the area, and the instability of the many wars encouraged the locals to abandon their village in the valley and build a town below the fortress walls.
The archeological site is incredible. Rosalie wasn’t kidding! The remains of the upper and lower town are standing right where the Byzantines left them, and visitors were allowed to walk through the town and into (some of) the buildings. Breathtaking Byzantine frescos still cover the walls in many buildings and artifacts from the inhabitants decorate some of the rooms. One could wander the (extremely) narrow streets just as the villagers of old once did. Seriously, people must have been smaller back then. A LOT smaller.
There is an upper and lower town, divided by various fortifications. At the very top was the fortress itself that provided defense for its citizens.
It was a straight up climb from the upper town, but I wanted to see it, so I drove the little rental car up the steep, winding road and parked as close as I could get, then began my ascent.
Even from the parking lot below, this hike was a slog. The path was lined with irregularly sized and shaped stones making the whole trek like a game of “The Floor is Lava” where one must jump from stone to stone without wedging one’s boot in the irregular cracks between the stones. Add to the rock jumping challenge, the climb was steep.
And long.
Did I mention the hike was steep and long? Oh, right. I did.
But the payoff was the heart stopping view of the valley, flanked by the towering peaks of the Taygetus Range. Maybe it was the view that was heart stopping or maybe my heart was just stopping in protest to the climb. Whatever it was, I was speechless.
It was tremendous. Again, no picture can capture that sweeping panorama (I supposed I could have taken a sweeping panorama picture. Didn’t think about it. Too busy trying to breathe). And the ruins were quite spectacular too. There were enough walls standing to get a feel for life in the fortress.
The thing that struck me immediately was the fact that every single thing the garrison consumed, needed or wanted — all if it had to be brought on foot from the town below. Way below… I sincerely hope they had a source of water within the fortress. Otherwise, that would have been a posting from Hell for some poor Byzantine soldier.
Visitors were free to wander the site. One could walk the perimeter walls or look out the windows at the view as one of the soldiers might have seen it. Beautiful.
The rich, green valley lay below, with tiny villages of white-washed houses and red tiled roofs. The valley was flanked by rows upon rows of deep blue mountains under a brilliant, cloudless sky. The hike to the top nearly did me in, but the payoff was tremendous.
I spent about four hours covering every inch of the fortress and of some of the buildings below. By then the temperature was soaring, I was drenched with sweat, and I felt like I had fulfilled my purpose for the day. Time to move on to the delightful coastal city of Nafpoli.
