Monemvasia

The rock may have held a Minoan trading post; Pausanias and Strabo knew it as a promontory called Minoa, opposite the ancient town of Epidaurus Limera. Monemvasia itself was founded in the 6th century, when people from Sparta moved to the rock for safety; the Chronicle of Monemvasia blames a Slav raid of 587–588, but the first church of Christ Elkomenos dates from Justinian's reign, decades earlier. The name means "single entrance", after the causeway.

While much of the Peloponnese declined, Monemvasia thrived on the sea routes to Sicily and the east. It beat off Roger II of Sicily's fleet in 1147 and fell to William of Villehardouin only in 1225, after a three-year siege; returned to Byzantium in the 1260s, it gained tax privileges that made the period up to 1460 its golden age. Its wine trade made the Italian form of its name, Malvasia — Malmsey in English — familiar across Europe, although the wine itself came mostly from elsewhere in the Peloponnese and the Cyclades.

Monemvasia passed to Venice in the 1460s and was surrendered to the Ottomans in 1540, when most inhabitants fled to Corfu and Crete. Venice took it back in 1690 and lost it again in 1715. A four-month siege at the start of the War of Independence ended in its surrender to the Greeks on 23 July 1821. In 1828 only 659 people lived here, and the population kept falling as families left for Athens or for Gefyra across the causeway; by 1971 the old town had just 32 residents. Its revival came from outsiders who bought and restored the houses, many of which became hotels.

Monemvasia's culture is its architecture. The lower town keeps its Byzantine street plan, with the Middle Street running from the west gate past churches built and rebuilt over a thousand years; Hagia Sophia crowns the upper town, and a mosque of 1540 survives as a reminder of the Ottoman centuries. The restoration of the old town turned near-abandoned ruins into a much-visited destination.

The poet Yiannis Ritsos was born in Monemvasia in 1909, went to primary school here, and is buried here; his name is closely tied to the town. The rock's nickname, "the Gibraltar of the East", is a matter of local pride, and so is the memory of the town's resistance in its sieges, ended by the surrender of the Ottoman garrison to the Greeks in July 1821.

Like the rest of Laconia, Monemvasia is Greek Orthodox, and its churches are in active use. Visitors are welcome if dressed modestly.

Few people live inside the walls today: the old town's population fell to 32 in 1971, and most of its houses now belong to hotels, guesthouses and owners who come for the summer. Everyday life has moved to Gefyra on the mainland side of the causeway, which had about 1,300 residents in 2011 and grew strongly as the old town emptied. As early as 1951, half of the community's 522 residents already lived in Gefyra and only 178 in the old town. The seat of the wider municipality of Monemvasia is the inland town of Molaoi.

Tourism is the main business, and the year follows it: busy days in the warm months, when visitors fill the lower town's lanes, and quiet winters. There are no cars inside the walls, so life in the lower town keeps a pace set by walking. The surrounding countryside of Laconia is olive country, and many families from Monemvasia itself moved to Athens during the 20th century.

Monemvasia eats as southern Laconia does. Olive groves are part of the Laconian landscape; the dark, almond-shaped Kalamata olive is named after a city of the southern Peloponnese, and the Koroneiki is the most common olive for oil in Greece. Sfela, a semi-hard white cheese kept in brine and protected since 1996, belongs to the south of the Peloponnese, and hilopites, a pasta of flour, eggs and milk, and trahanas soup belong to the wider Greek kitchen.

Tavernas in the lower town and in Gefyra serve the everyday Greek table: meze, small dishes shared around the table and often taken with ouzo or tsipouro; souvlaki, small pieces of meat grilled on a skewer; and horiatiki, the Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, feta and olives dressed with oregano, lemon juice and olive oil. Diples, strips of dough fried and folded, dipped in honey syrup and topped with walnuts, are a typical Peloponnese dessert served at weddings and at New Year.

Wine is part of the town's story. Monemvasia gave its name to Malvasia, the sweet "Malmsey" of medieval trade, shipped from its harbour across Europe even though the grapes mostly grew elsewhere.