belleelene

It was a cold December morning, and the omens about the weather were as bad as they could be. When bad weather strikes, the best case scenario to magically avoid it, is to go south. Taygetus is your safest bet. Advice #1: as my mountaineering teacher always exclaims, “Taygetus is certainly the best mountain in the world”. But what if you’ve been there a gazillion times? Here’s another beautiful and child-friendly trail around Mystras for you to explore.

If you travel all the way to Sparta, it would be a shame not to visit the castle-city of Mystras. Mistaken by western visitors as ancient Sparta, this castle on the eastern flanks of Taygetus used to be the last stronghold of the Byzantine emperors, until they caved completely to the Ottomans. Imagine how much the empire had shrunk in power, that it’s political and cultural elite was confined in the southern tip of the Peloponnese. As the legend goes, the last king from the line of the Palaiologoi remains marble-like, frozen in time to this day. But when he rises, the empire will rise with him back to its former glory (aaaand Greek nationalists expect Constantinopolis to magically become the capital again). We greeted the king’s statue, patted a lazy cat, bid farewell to the castle and set forth to the abandoned village of Taygeti.

Stone-paved trails from many villages in the area lead to the political center of Mystras. A lot of them are phantom villages in the present day. The last permanent residents abandoned them years ago, but the buildings still stand. Taygeti was abandoned in the 60s, though the views towards the river Evrotas and nearby mountain Parnonas remain, magnificent as always. The monastery of Zoodochos Pigi is a great option for a quick picnic to enjoy the autumn foliage. Oh, how much did this landscape remind me of Japanese koyo! Even the trail was marked with a symbol like katakana letter ‘te’ (て), though I will probably never find out why.

From the monastery, a well-marked trail with green arrows leads towards another abandoned village, Perganteika. There is no way you can expect to see a village there, in the middle of nowhere. Plus, the stone walls of the houses allow them hide so well among the autumn colors. We stopped to drink some water at the spring next to the large, moss-covered plane tree.

From Perganteika the path continues to Anavriti and connects with the E4 trail. Some decades back, the children of the village followed the same path as we did every day to go to school. You cross a bridge above the stream of Lagkada (not to be confused with another stream with the same name a bit to the north) towards the red rocks. When you reach a crossroad, you turn towards Faneromeni Monastery. The view of the entire valley of Evrotas river is one of a kind. Bonus, the large cross at the hilltop next to the monastery, which looks just like the cross of San Miguel at Montserrat near Barcelona. Is it only me?

Just before we reached the village of Parori (an inhabited one, this time), we made a quick stop at Panagia Zagouna, which may be historically linked to the Arcadian village of Zatouna. This picturesque church is built inside a cave in the red rock, becoming one and the same with its surroundings. I guess building churches at caves is a thing; a parallel trail leads to the red-colored Panagia Lagkadiotissa, again a church with a cave walls, where Emperor Palaiologos visited just before leaving to reign (and die at) Constantinopolis in 1449. This area was probably prosperous and abundant with water, that’s why place names like Chrisopigi (golden spring) and Chrysolagkado (golden gorge) persist. Eventually, we reached Parori, well family and friends treated us with freshly picked oranges, to reward us for this (arguably easy) hike.

Here you’ll find my trail recording from Mystras to Taygeti  and from Taygeti via Perganteika to Parorio on alltrails. You can read more hiking posts under the tag hiking. Until next time!