TRAVERSE 97
TRAVEL - GREECE
ANTONIO FEMIA & ALESSANDRA REALE
FACE EVERY ATTACK WITH HONOUR
For those who were school children during the Cold War , the opposing blocs of the world at that time might have been reminiscent of the one between Athens and Sparta . At the very least , the storytelling was terribly similar ; democracy and freedom on the one hand , and on the other an arid , militaristic regime . Given that no one would really like to live as a soldier in search of a glorious death , Spartanity has undoubtedly prevailed in the popular imagination and beyond . Historians talk about the so called “ Spartan mirage ”, a myth that is so fascinating to impress even historical sources . So , resign yourself ; reality had little to do with the warriors of Leonidas that we saw in “ 300 ”, however , their cultural heritage survived in the whole region and progressed until nowadays .
Ancient Sparta ruled over the whole of Laconia thanks to its dominant caste , specialised in the art of war ; people of few and firm words , a way of being so characteristic that we define laconic as those who express themselves in a dry and concise manner . The dots we were about to join on the map took us to the Máni , the central finger of the three that make up the Peloponnese , among the proud descendants of the Spartans ; a people with a warlike past that virtually no one has ever managed to subdue . However , our journey did not begin in the city of Leonidas : just a few ruins of the original Sparta remain there , and the current one is a nineteenth-century refoundation , never completed and a bit ugly , indeed . We then started from the ruins of nearby Mystras , the last Byzantine stronghold that was able to survive the Ottomans and prosper under Venetian rule until it was abandoned , ironically , to facilitate the rebirth of Sparta .
Starting from the village of Trypi , the winding state road 82 Sparta-
TRAVERSE 97