5 Best Sights in Sparta, The Peloponnese

Olives are thick on the ground in these parts, so it's only fitting that Sparta is home to a quirky and appealing collection of apparatus and culture related to the staple of Greek economy since ancient times, housed in a stunning renovation of the city's first electricity works.

What little remains of Ancient Sparta's acropolis is now part archaeological site, part park. Locals can be seen here strolling, along with many young couples stealing a romantic moment amid the fallen limestone and shady trees. The sparse ruins include a theater, a stadium, and a sanctuary to Athena.

This eclectic collection reflects Laconia's turbulent history and is worth an hour to see Neolithic pottery; jewels and tools excavated from the Alepotrypa cave; Mycenaean tomb finds; bright 4th- and 5th-century Roman mosaics; and objects from Sparta. Most characteristic of the relatively few pieces of Spartan art that have survived are the bas-reliefs filled with images of deities and heroes; note the one depicting a seated couple bearing gifts who are framed by a snake (540 BC).

Stop a moment and contemplate the statue of the stern Spartan leader. During the Second Persian War in the 5th century BC, with 30,000 Persians advancing on his army of 8,000, Leonidas, ordered to surrender his weapons, was said to have jeered, "Come and get them." For two days he held off the enemy, until a traitor named Efialtes (the word has since come to mean "nightmare" in Greek) showed the Persians a way to attack from the rear. When forced to retreat to a wooded knoll, Leonidas is said to have commented, "So much the better, we will fight in the shade." His entire troop was slaughtered and an icon was born. Today his likeness adorns everything from wines to T-shirts, to the tattooed arms of young Greek men.

At this temple just outside the main part of town, young Spartan men underwent krypteia (initiations) that entailed severe public floggings. The altar had to be splashed with blood before the goddess was satisfied. Traces of two such altars are among sparse vestiges of the 6th-century BC temple; the larger ruins are the remains of a grandstand built in the 3rd century AD by the Romans, who revived the flogging tradition as a public spectacle. This is a pretty rough-and-ready site, with ample information plaques but little in the way of guides or a museum.