Things to do in Sparta

This is the one things-to-do page on the site that opens by telling you there is almost nothing to do. Visitors to Sparta are often disappointed, and the disappointment is the most interesting thing about the place. There is almost nothing to see, and that is not an accident of survival. It is what Sparta was.

Thucydides said as much in the fifth century BC: if Sparta were deserted, he wrote, later generations would refuse to believe its power, because the city had no grand temples or public buildings, only a scatter of villages. He was right, and the ground still demonstrates it.

What is actually there, which is the honest list. The acropolis and theatre north of the modern town, ruined and overgrown, with the remains of the sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos on the hill. The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, where Spartan boys were flogged in an endurance ritual that later became a Roman-era spectator event with seating built for tourists. The archaeological museum, small and good, holding the Vaphio cups and a helmeted bust often called Leonidas. And a statue of Leonidas at the end of the main avenue, modern, with the words Molon labe on it. A morning covers all of it.

Why come at all, first reason. Standing in the empty valley and understanding why it is empty is a genuinely instructive hour. Sparta spent on soldiers rather than on buildings, and there is no better demonstration of that than the absence itself. Most ancient cities are understood through what they left; this one is understood through what it did not.

Why come at all, second reason, and it is much stronger. Mystras, five kilometres away: a Byzantine city on the slope of Taygetos, abandoned and extraordinarily well preserved, with palaces, churches and frescoes. It is one of the best sites in Greece, and it is the real reason to be in this valley. If you have one day here, it belongs to Mystras and the morning belongs to Sparta.

The setting, which is the other thing people underrate. The Eurotas valley is agricultural, planted with olives and citrus, and Mount Taygetos rises steeply to the west to over 2,400 metres. The mountain is the dominant fact of the landscape and a serious walking area in its own right, so a valley that has little to visit has a great deal to look at.

And the honest recommendation. Come for a morning if you are interested in why the city is empty, and build the day around Mystras. Do not come expecting the Sparta of the films: the site that would carry that expectation was never built. That refusal is the most useful thing this page can give you, and it is the reason it is short. Our Sparta guide has the practicalities and the Mani is under two hours south.