Modern Sparta is the small administrative capital of Laconia, a quiet town of around 16,000 people in the broad Eurotas valley between the Taygetos and Parnon mountain ranges. It exists almost entirely on a grid laid out by a Bavarian town planner in the 1830s on the site of the ancient city, and you should arrive with calibrated expectations: there are essentially no above-ground remains of classical Sparta to speak of. As Thucydides predicted in the fifth century BC, future generations would find it hard to believe such an unimpressive site had once held one of the most feared powers in the Greek world.
Spartan austerity, it turns out, applied to the architecture too. Where Athens built marble, Sparta built mud-brick and timber — and time has been merciless. What survives is the acropolis, a low hill north of the modern centre with scattered ruins of a theatre, a stoa and the temple of Athena Chalkioikos; the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, where Spartan youths were ritually flogged as a coming-of-age rite; and the Menelaion, a hilltop shrine outside town said to be the tomb of Helen and Menelaus. The Archaeological Museum on the main square holds what little was found.
The real reason most travellers come to Sparta is to use it as a base for Mistra, five kilometres west — a UNESCO-listed Byzantine ghost city of palaces, churches and monasteries on the slopes of the Taygetos. Mistra is far more impressive than anything in Sparta itself, and a half-day there plus the Sparta museum makes a satisfying day from a single hotel.
The modern town is functional rather than beautiful, with a few decent tavernas around the main square and the long pedestrian boulevard that runs west toward the giant statue of Leonidas at the end of town. The local Laconian oranges, olives and a heavy-bodied red wine from the Eurotas vineyards are the regional contributions to dinner. Two nights is enough for most visitors.