Mystras is a whole Byzantine city draped down a steep hillside, a few kilometres west of modern Sparta, at the foot of the Taygetos mountains. It began in 1249, when William II of Villehardouin, a Frankish prince ruling the Peloponnese after the Fourth Crusade, built a castle on the summit. Within a few years the Byzantines had taken it back, and Mystras grew into the capital of the Despotate of the Morea, a centre of learning and art in the last centuries of the empire. The philosopher Gemistos Plethon taught here, and in 1449 Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, was crowned here before leaving for Constantinople, where he died when the city fell in 1453.
Today the site is a maze of ruined houses, palaces, churches and monasteries, connected by steep paths and stairways. The churches hold some of the finest late Byzantine frescoes in Greece, delicate and full of movement. The Pantanassa convent is still inhabited by a few nuns, and its courtyard, with flowers and a view across the plain, is a place of calm. The climb from the lower gate to the castle on the summit is long and steep; there is an upper entrance, so plan accordingly, and carry water in summer.
The plain below is a sea of orange and olive groves, and in spring the scent of blossom fills the air. Sparta is a modern town, rebuilt in the nineteenth century on a grid plan, with little left of the ancient city, but it has fuel, garages, cafés and restaurants, and an olive oil museum.
The ride from Sparta to Kalamata over the Taygetos through the Langada gorge is one of the great roads of Greece. It climbs from the plain into the mountains in a long series of bends, then threads through the gorge, with cliffs rising on both sides and pine and fir trees clinging to the rock, before descending in a cascade of hairpins towards the Messinian Gulf. The surface is generally decent but can be broken in places, and rockfalls are possible after rain. Take your time.
Go in spring or autumn. Summer heat in the Laconian plain is intense, and Mystras offers little shade. On a clear day in April, with snow still on the Taygetos summits and the orange trees in flower, it is unforgettable.