Final Pictures from Greece

I will be coming to the United States in a few short hours. Here are a few last pictures before I set off for the New World. They will be offered up in three sections and they are of three particularly nice sites—a fitting flourish for a conclusion. The first of these is from Mystras. This site in the highlands above Sparta is amazing. Originally a fortress and town founded by the Franks on territory taken from the Byzantine Empire in the 13th century AD, it was recaptured by the Byzantines and became a flourishing centre that had political, intellectual and artistic importance. This is Byzantine architecture at its finest! I bought TRH another present here too.

This is where, right here in Mystras, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus, was crowned in 1448. He kneeled on this marble slab in the main church that has incised on it the Byzantine double eagle. He died a few years later in 1453 in the unsuccessful defense of Constantinople against the Turks.




The Pantanassa (the mistress of all things, the referent is Mary) which is a still functioning nunnery.