We spent a night in the modern little town of Sparta to recover from climbing ancient Mystras. In the evening, we had our favorite gyros, then we found a lovely pastry shop with excellent ice cream and after that, we washed it all down with a beer in a trendy bar. The next morning we took...
Former Byzantine capital and fortified city Mystras is spread over a steep mountainside of Mt. Taygetos and surrounded by verdant olive and orange trees. It is the single most compelling set of medieval ruins in Greece (entrance 12 EUR). Treading the cobblestones, worn smooth by centuries...
In a small valley in the Peloponnesus, the shrine of Asklepios, the god of medicine, developed out of a much earlier cult of Apollo (Maleatas), during the 6th century BC at the latest, as the official cult of the city-state of Epidaurus. Its principal monuments, particularly the temple of...
We took a highway to Peloponnese (🛣 15,65 EUR) to reach a hilltop backed by powerful mountains, where stand the somber and mighty ruins of Ancient Mycenae, home of Agamemnon, the legendary king who commanded the Greeks during the Trojan War. For four centuries in the second millennium BC...
We decided to spend five days in the city, from where many of Classical civilization’s intellectual and artistic ideas originated. It is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. When approached from the Middle East, Athens, with its tall buildings and trendy...
Eleusis Archeological Site is situated about 18 kilometers northwest of the center of Athens on the slopes of a low hill on the Thriasian Plain, close to the shore of the Saronic Gulf. Although little has been restored, the scale of its construction is impressive, as enormous pieces of...
We spent one day in the ancient sanctuary of Delphi. For the Greeks, Delphi marked the very center of the world, a sacred space where human beings could communicate directly with the gods. Blending harmoniously with the superb landscape and charged with sacred meaning, Delphi in the 6th...
The word Nekromanteion means “Oracle of the Dead”, and the faithful came here to talk with their dead ancestors. Per ancient sources, the site was in use from at least the 8th century BC, and the extant walls and labyrinth date from the late 4th century BC. The Romans burned...
We knew that Museum on the water is closed on Monday, but since it was on the way to St Naum Monastery, we gave it a try. And we were lucky enough to find a friendly guard, who opened it for us (entrance 150 MKD). In prehistoric times Lake Ohrid was home to a settlement of pile dwellers...
Stobi (entrance 120 MKD) was an ancient town of Paeonia, later conquered by Macedon, and finally turned into the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia Salutaris. Stobi was built where the Erigon (Crna River) joins the Axios (Vardar), making it strategically important as a center for...