An Englishman should never be seen...

An Englishman should never be seen at breakfast in shorts. I cling to this thought as bare-legged Frenchmen around us at breakfast supped on the coffee-flavoured hot water as part of their morning repas. I've never got the hang of hotel breakfasts. I don't know why, it's not as if I've no restaurant experience, but somehow the shuffling post-shower, pre-prep, to eat cornflakes surrounded by strangers, throws me a little. I confess as much and Mel, somewhat unhelpfully I thought, concurred that I looked awkward.

Shorts, however, were the order of the day thereafter. Mel recovered slightly, extolling the virtues of my cyclist legs. My usual anti-short stance is defined by a skinny childhood, with jokes coming from my football playing friends, grounded in less politically correct Ethiopian famine times. And time doesn't really heal, but at least it now allows me to have discernible calves.

Anyway, to Mystras, whence we had left you yesterday. The morning sun having pumped out as much heat as would be a maximum for a summer's day at home. Therefore misgivings to one side, shorts donned, a hill to climb.

The Castle, perched on an improbable lump of rock, 2000 feet up, was only a third of a Munro above our starting point. But the heat. At a conservative estimate those 30 degrees equate to roughly another 1000 feet. At 200 feet in Scotland you can almost guarantee a wind verging on a gale, and you wouldn't lose a pint of perspiration every hundred yards. Here the humidity means you feel each breath, your brow is torrential, at at 2000 feet you curse the gentle breeze for being warm.

The guide from the agent suggested two litres of water for each person on each possible walk, and it was with relief that advice was heeded.

Lest it be thought this is a complaint, I should make clear that every heavy, hot, tiring step was actually a joy. Leaving the New Town, our initially flat route took us past bountiess wild trees of fruit, their crop simply ripening and falling to earth. Limes and oranges; fat, juicy figs (which, as Mel correctly ascertained, would cost a fortune in M&S); and pomegranates. Only the olives, tree upon tree of olives, were short of maturity, though you felt would suffer the same fate.

As height as gained we made the Old Town. More precipitous than the New, one of the most important posts of the Byzantine empire, a 13th century feat of engineering, and quite rightly a world heritage site (something Greece isn't short of). Here the distinctive red roof tiles take on an artistic feel atop the truly multifarious chapels.

Most buildings are ruins, some merely outlines, but even that gives a feel for the scale of the city-that-once-was. Other buildings survive mainly intact. The Palace is undergoing renovation, and so is closed, but is impressive in scale (if not actually in architectural aesthetic truth be told). Prettiest is probably the old monastery, now 'manned' by a handful of nuns, as well as a burgeoning population of cats. But these both only lie halfway up the hill.

The ticket booth seller had scribbled on my basic map a suggested route. "It is best in two halves," she declared, drawing a circle taking in the numbered sites of interest on the lower slopes. "Do this first," she points, "then go back for your car and drive to the top car park to go to the Castle." She marks the car park with an 'X' then draws a line from it to the easily distinguishable Castle. It brought to mind Colin Farrell with some assumed-American-actually-Canadian tourists in a superb scene from In Bruges. Except it meant she thought we were fat and unfit. But anyway, we'd left the car back in the New Town, a mile or two away from the ticket office, so there was no other option but to walk it all.

With a gradual pace, and a few scenery admiring stops (which explanation defies euphemism, the views truly were astounding), we also managed to be distracted by the wildlife: countless lizards (from standard little stripy chaps, to large green ones, and tiny black examples with bright blue tails); a couple of Blue Rock Thrushes (skittish, but pretty); a number of simply beautiful yellow swallowtail butterflies; and crickets which, when they took flight, revealed bright red wings. There had been the potential for vultures over the high fortification, and indeed as we his the summit there was a large raptor soaring. The binoculars revealed something not unlike a buzzard, that may have been a Bonelli's Eagle, but a positive identification was hindered simply by a lack of knowledge.

The top is perfectly breathtaking, with steep sides around, and the mountains always framing the scene against the blue sky. It's dramatic and vertiginous.

The trip to the summit sees my use of French outstrip that of Greek as an old Gallic chap descending exclaims it's as hard descending as going up. I add in the heat to which he concurs, and I extend it to being 'too hot', whereupon he utters a final truth, "It's better than being here in July." My Greek, meanwhile, has been limited to general greetings of hello, good morning and good evening. I'm never entirely sure if my attempts at thank you (efcharisto) are delivered correctly, so after a late pre-siesta lunch I ask the waiter and the 'ch' sound appears to be as in 'loch', a more guttural exclamation, much as with some throaty French pronunciation. But for some reason it won't flow naturally. Perhaps it will come as vocabulary increases ('dheeo' for two, and 'polli kala' for very good have served me well later in the day).

Post-siesta and poor old Sparta gains a second chance after the fleeting glimpse of the day before. It improves slightly, with a trip down the main street revealing some compelling bars and restaurants, but there's still not the true pull to linger after visiting the large statue of Leonidas (erected in 1968 in case you think it's of classic Greek origin) at the more building site end of the street.

* * *

I'd never heard of Patrick Leigh Fermor before coming to Greece, but stumbled across his 50s account of travelling in the Mani (the southern part of the Peloponnese) just before leaving and have found myself enthralled. So it was entirely by chance that we filled the last hour or so of daylight with a trip up one of the more interesting looking mountain roads, and after 8km of ascent reach Anavayrati, a small but stunningly located place high in the Taygetus foothills (with the main ridge towering over). And it was here that Fermor started his journey into the Deep Mani, so it felt like something of a pilgrimage. Perhaps odd for a man I didn't even know existed a few days ago.

Mystras, for us as for Fermor, has been a wonderful introduction to the area. One which we're already plotting future returns to, with mountain walks spotted, and so much more to explore. Unlike Fermor we can strike for the Deep Mani under combustible locomotion, rather than a guided walk through the mountains, with gear carried by mule. We'll pick him up on the other side in a few days, but tomorrow the south-east beckons, and the fortified island stronghold of Monemvasia.