Today was one of the happiest days I have had exploring the ruins of Greece. I loved scouring the ruins of Delphi and Acropolis, but Mystra was fantastic. There is something about Byzantine history that just enthralls me and seeing a destroyed town and fortress from the period was amazing. It was as if I could feel the different layers of occupation in the mortar and rocks as we headed down the hillside. The area below us was where the Spartans once fiercely held territory, meaning that with this fortress much blood was lost over the ages. I felt, for some reason, that this space made more sense to me than the other places we have visited. The time felt more tangible, which could have been because it was one thousand years more contemporary but either way I loved it. I could have spent hours there, wandering, thinking or reading. The fact that there is an active monastery on the site also made me feel like this area made sense to me because it was not just a fabricated site for tourism. People still occupy a place of incredible importance a thousand years prior and that means something. People are resilient and even if their motives change, places they live still hold meaning through history and I feel that is what I felt today, the weight of hundreds of years of emotion.
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