Day 3, we visited the fortified town of Mystras, built on a hillside overlooking the Laconia valley. Scrambling up to the castle keep, and then winding our way back down, stopping along the way to look at monasteries tucked into the hill...I'd say it was a morning well spent.
Due to an unfortunate case of guards-deciding-to-do-what-they-want-to-do-despite-the-official-posted-hours, we were going to arrive at our second planned site, Messene, the ruins of a Classical Greek city-state, after it had closed. But once again proving it's all about knowing the right people and saying the right things (which in this case included my professor pulling the "oh by the way I excavate here, bitch please" card), we were let into the site specially.
This gives some idea of the site, which is 25 acres. We saw only a small portion: yet another stadium, as well as an agora (the judicial, administrative, social, and religious center). Really well restored, as you can see:
Due to an unfortunate case of guards-deciding-to-do-what-they-want-to-do-despite-the-official-posted-hours, we were going to arrive at our second planned site, Messene, the ruins of a Classical Greek city-state, after it had closed. But once again proving it's all about knowing the right people and saying the right things (which in this case included my professor pulling the "oh by the way I excavate here, bitch please" card), we were let into the site specially.
This gives some idea of the site, which is 25 acres. We saw only a small portion: yet another stadium, as well as an agora (the judicial, administrative, social, and religious center). Really well restored, as you can see:
This site was particularly fun because the head of excavations follows the belief that sites should be as interactive as possible, and there were therefore no ropes, no restrictions, and no rules. Our professor explicitly told us to frolic and misbehave.
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