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| | | | A Greek magical Mystra tour
As you approach from the north, the ruins are almost invisible. In the half-light of dawn, they blend like crumbling cliffs into the mountain backdrop.
'You still can't see them?' asks Georgia, my guide. 'There...and there...and there...'
I look to left and right, and suddenly a startling sight emerges. On the steep, shrub-covered hillside the broken ruins of an entire city slowly appear. A castle; a palace; a huge, domed monastery.
This, then, is the fabled Mystra - once the jewel in the crown of Greece's Peloponnese. It's one of the great, lost cities of the medieval world - a thriving metropolis that died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Like Pompeii, it was snuffed out by an outside force. Like Pompeii, its evocative ruins allow a fascinating glimpse into another world. Now, it's being restored.
I'm here to take a trip back through time. Georgia, chief architect of the restoration programme, has promised to guide me back through half a millennium, to the days when Mystra was one of the most fabulous cities of the Byzantine empire.
As the imperial capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), was besieged - and the once-great empire collapsed into ruins - her philosophers, artists and poets flocked to the safety of Mystra.
It was to this distant city that the descendants of Plato and Sophocles carted their boxes of manuscripts. They read them, they discussed them and, after receiving an invitation to stay with the Medici family, transported them to Italy.
There are many who argue that Mystra's scholars provided the spark that started the Renaissance.
Compared to most Greek cities, Mystra is an upstart. Nearby Sparta was already a ruin when Mystra's myrtlecovered slopes were first cleared of their wild goats. It was not until the 13th Century that the first foundation stones of this great city were laid.
Travel guide: Peloponnese
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| | | | A sweeping panorama
'A Frankish knight called William of Villehardouin built the castle atop the hill,' explains Georgia. 'He was a descendent of crusaders who had colonised the Peloponnese. He was so troubled by warlike tribes that he vowed to build an impregnable castle.'
I ask Georgia if we can climb to the top. 'You go,' she says, pointing guiltily to a packet of cigarettes. 'I can't get up there any more.'
I clamber up the steep scree path. The higher I climb, the more spectacular the view. I have a sweeping panorama across the southern Peloponnese.
The villages of Sparta, Gerakion and Chrisafa lie below. In the distance, a line of purple mountains are enveloped in purple haze. Beyond them lies the picturesque port of Monemvasia.
This lush green landscape is dotted with vineyards, perfumed orange groves and tidy vegetable plots.
Crusader William certainly knew how to build a castle. The sheer hilltop is enclosed with monumental walls.
On the side facing the wilds of Mount Taygetos -home to William's enemies - there's a vertigo-inducing drop into the valley below.
The tribes must have shaken their heads in despair as they watched these foreign knights at work.
William's good fortune was not to last. Captured by the mighty Byzantine army, he tried to flee in disguise. But his goofy front teeth betrayed him.
Although his life was spared, he was forced to hand over his beloved Mystra castle.
I climbed back down to Georgia, who was waiting -cigarette in hand - by the Palace of the Despots.
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| | | | The palace feels Gothic
This rambling ruin is one of the city's glories -an immense series of empty salons and chambers that sit atop a towering bluff of rock.
'We're in the middle of restoring the place,' says Georgia. 'We hope to give some impression of how splendid it once looked.'
This labyrinthine building would have been dripping with opulence. Marbles, mosaics, frescoes and gold - the Byzantines delighted in exotic colours and bold designs.
Even their chapels were a riot of colour.
Georgia leads me up scaffolding and we duck and dive through partially restored chambers and draughty throne rooms. The palace feels Gothic; it could almost belong in rural France.
There's good reason for this. Mystra's rulers married Frankish courtly ladies, who added pointed Gothic windows to their bedrooms, and decorated their walls with fleurs-de-lis.
Georgia says the renovation of Mystra is an arduous job. 'The greatest dangers come from nature,' she says. 'Plants, trees and shrubs run riot if they're not continually hacked down.'
She points to the far end of the city, which has yet to be cleared. The plants are of jungle-sized proportions, quite dwarfing the houses they conceal.
'Their roots invade the foundations, arches crack and masonry is dislodged,' says Georgia. 'It doesn't take much to destroy an old building.'
She leads me down cobbled streets and through long-abandoned markets to the lovely Monastery of the Pantanassa - a six-domed church bedecked with a marble colonnade.
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| | | | Meet the nuns
The dark interior is heavy with the scent of incense, as though the ghost of some Byzantine holy man has just been swinging his censer.
'This is the only building in Mystra that's still inhabited,' says Georgia. 'Come, let's meet the nuns.'
Sister Magdalene welcomes me with a smile. Next thing I know, I'm sitting in her bedroom drinking eau de vie and eating Turkish - oops, Greek - Delight.
It all feels rather improper - I've never lounged on a nun's bed before. Her tiny cell is decorated with icons, lamps and religious pictures, much as it might have been 400 years ago.
Here on this lonely hillside, these few devout women keep alive the spirit of Byzantium. But the future is not looking too bright.
Several nuns have died in recent years and now there are just five left. In a few years, the city's only inhabited building may well be a ghostly shell.
You could spend an entire day at Mystra, clambering over ruins and poking your head into medieval dwellings. And you could spend a week or two in the Peloponnese, visiting classical temples and Byzantine villages.
Dozens of foreign armies passed through this corner of Greece, leaving long-abandoned monuments to mark their passing. But none can quite match the romanticism of Mystra's shattered ruins.
After a long day at the site, Georgia has a surprise in store. 'Professor Sinos is coming to dinner,' she says excitedly. 'It's your lucky day.'
It is indeed. This passionate professor is in charge of Mystra and knows every stone and broken tile. He wants to take me on an imaginary journey through the city of old.
As we munch through mouthwatering platters of grilled sausages and stuffed aubergine, he explains the weird lifestyle of Mystra's medieval folk.
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| | | | The history of ideas
'Every aspect of life was totally dominated by the church,' he explains, 'and people spent much of their time in prayer. There were feasts, saints' days and an endless cycle of services.'
Mystra still has dozens of churches and scores of private chapels. Half the population must have been either a monk or a nun.
'Absolutely,' says Georgia. 'Many people became monks when they retired. Monasteries doubled as old people's homes.'
Mystra's finest hour came in the twilight of the Byzantine empire. As Constantinople was besieged on all fronts, the capital's scholars and philosophers poured into Mystra, bringing with them manuscripts of Sophocles, Socrates, Euripides and Plato.
'The most important scholar was a chap called Plethon,'explains Professor Sinos. 'He used to give philosophy lectures in the marketplace.'
As the townsfolk haggled over carrots and plums, they were given a quick introduction to the teachings of Plato.
'Mystra played a crucial role in the history of ideas,' explains the professor. 'For centuries people had obeyed religious strictures. But Plethon introduced the idea of debate.'
This long-forgotten philosopher saw the city at the height of its glory. But, unbeknown to its inhabitants, there was an ugly cloud on the horizon.
In 1453, the great city of Constantinople fell to the Turks. Just seven years later, Mystra, too, was lost.
To the surprise of Mystra's elite, the Turkish occupation didn't spell the end of the city. It became the seat of the local pasha and grew ever wealthier as the Turks developed its fledgling silk industry.
When the English traveller Bernard Randolph visited in 1671, he found a bourgeois city producing an exotic variety of goods.
For almost four centuries after the Turkish occupation, Mystra retained a provincial prosperity, although its most glorious days already belonged to history.
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| | | | Byzantine churches lay in ruins
When the end came, it was savage and abrupt. In 1825, during the Greek War of Independence, an Egyptian mercenary named Ibrahim Pasha landed in the Peloponnese with the aim of capturing the city.
His arrival coincided with that of a travelling English vicar, the Reverend Charles Swan, who chanced upon Ibrahim near Mystra.
'A stout, broad, vulgar-looking man,' he wrote, 'marked through with the pox.'
When Swan asked him why he'd come to Mystra, the Egyptian was blunt. He said he intended to 'burn and destroy...so it should be profitable neither to the Greeks nor to anyone'.
He said he would not stop until the place was a ruin.
Ibrahim was true to his word. On September 14, 1825, he and his men descended on the city with a fury. Most of the population had long since fled in terror.
Ibrahim, whipped into a frenzy, destroyed what he could, burning, looting and demolishing.
When the Reverend Swan visited Mystra later that evening, he was horrified. 'Not a soul was visible,' he wrote.
'Nothing could equal the desolation.' Some of the greatest Byzantine churches lay in ruins.
The imperial palace was in flames, the once glorious mansions of the Byzantine nobility had been torched and their exquisite frescoes had shattered in the heat.
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| | | | Wander through deserted streets
Swan found much of the town still smouldering,with smashed furniture blocking the streets. 'There were household utensils broken and scattered in every direction,' he wrote. 'A cat remained the only inhabitant.'
Swan was devastated by what he saw. Once this great city had kept alight the torch of Byzantium.
Here scholars and philosophers had rediscovered the learning of ancient Greece. Now, in the chaos of the Greek War of Independence, the population had fled for their lives, never to return.
It could have been the end of Mystra but there was to be a postscript.
For many years the ruins were left to crumble, but in the late 19th Century a curious French scholar named Gabriel Millet paid a visit to the site.
He was astonished by what he found - fragments of palaces, churches and the rambling mansions. His findings were published to wild acclaim and, within a matter of years, the lost city of Mystra was back on the map.
These days it's truly an eerie sensation to wander through deserted streets and abandoned bed-chambers. Is that a shadow in the doorway? Is that a footprint in the dust?
A door slams. A baby cries. As twilight descends on Mystra, the ghosts of Byzantium return.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
British Airways flies from Heathrow to Athens and reintroduces Gatwick flights on June 1, 2003. Call 0845 7733377 or visit http://www.britishairways.co.uk
Holiday Autos offers car hire from Athens Airport. Mystra is about four hours from Athens by road. Call Holiday Autos on 0870 400 0010 or visit http://www.holidayautos.co.uk
For more information, call the Greek Tourist Board on 0207 495 9300 or visit http://www.gnto.co.uk
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