Ancient Sparta Acropolis

The acropolis of ancient Sparta is a low, wooded hill on the northern edge of the modern town. The path from the centre takes about fifteen minutes; from the entrance, signposted trails loop through the ruins of the Roman theatre (the largest surviving structure on the hill), the temple of Athena Chalkioikos ("of the bronze house"), and the foundations of the medieval Byzantine basilica of Saint Nikon, who is the patron saint of Sparta.

Entry is free and the site is open during daylight hours. There is little to see compared with classical Greek sites elsewhere — Sparta deliberately built without monumental architecture and the centuries have done the rest — but the wooded hill with views over the Eurotas valley is pleasant to walk for an hour.

things to do sight
A story
When the Roman geographer Pausanias visited Sparta in the second century AD, the city was already in steep decline; he described monuments that had already been carted off for building stone. When the modern town was laid out in 1834, fresh raids on the acropolis provided foundation material for the new bourgeois villas. Almost nothing of the classical city's superstructure survives.