Reader S.T. asked if we’re ever going to do a travel piece on Mykonos or Santorini. Fair question. Those islands are beautiful, famous, and currently receiving enough coverage to qualify as their own media category. Our job is the other 225 islands, the mainland spots people skip, and the places where the best view does not come with a bottle-service minimum.

That said, if enough of you demand it, we’ll reconsider (are there really any hidden gems in Mykonos?). We are principled, not immovable. But this week we’re going to Mystras, where Greece just reopened a Byzantine palace after 42 years and €60 million, proof that sometimes the better story is not the island everyone already knows, but the dead city on a Peloponnesian hillside that casually helped carry the last centuries of Byzantium.

Also this week: Olympiacos are European champions again, so expect calm, modest celebrations, a Parthenis painting sold for €1.25 million in Paris, Thessaloniki students won a European money quiz and Cretan students topped a tech competition.

Let’s dive in. ☕🤿🇬🇷

🥇 Two Thessaloniki teens won Europe’s Money Quiz, giving financial literacy a rare Greek headline that doesn’t involve panic.

💻 Students from Crete placed first in a European technology competition, adding "tech" to the island's existing list of things it's inexplicably good at, right after “olive oil,” "cheese," and "living forever."

🔴 Olympiacos were crowned kings of Europe again, so the word “humble” has officially left Piraeus until further notice.

🏛️ Mystras reopened its restored Byzantine palace after a €60M overhaul, giving medieval Greece the renovation budget modern Greece keeps dreaming about.

🏝️ Skopelos is suddenly Europe’s cinematic darling, so prepare for travelers arriving normal and leaving convinced their life needs choreography

🫒 Lesvos is hosting a festival about olive oil, cinema, and climate, three topics Greeks can discuss without reaching closure.

🎭 John Cleese is coming to SNF Nostos, where Greece will welcome him warmly and then demonstrate that bureaucracy is the original sketch comedy.

🎨 A Parthenis masterpiece sold for €1M in Paris, which means Greek modern art has entered the “I always understood it” phase

🏝 Makri, an abandoned Greek island with a complicated history, is going to auction. If you've ever fantasized about buying a Greek island, here's your chance to discover what "complicated history" means in the listing.

🌍 Panathēnea 2026 wants Athens to unite technology and culture, a bold plan for a city where both history and Wi-Fi occasionally refuse to cooperate.

📉 Greek productivity is still stuck at 2000 levels, a brutal statistic for a country that has somehow remained extremely busy being tired.

🇦🇺 Australia launched a commemorative coin series for the Battle of Crete anniversary. Australians remembering Crete. Cretans remembering Australians. One of the few war stories where both sides are still grateful.

📖 Greece is sending 156 teachers to diaspora schools worldwide. Somewhere a generation of Greek-Australian, Greek-American, and Greek-Canadian kids just realized Saturday school is about to get more serious.

🇦🇺 Northcote hosts the 2026 Pontian Greek Genocide commemorations. 353,000 lives. The remembering never stops and shouldn't.

🥐 A Greek-Australian bakery won Australia’s top patisserie award, confirming the diaspora plan: integrate politely, then dominate dessert.

💌 Send it to [email protected] - your question might become next week's featured Q&A.

Konstantinos Parthenis was born in Alexandria, trained in Vienna and Paris, absorbed Symbolism, and then did the very Greek thing of returning home and making the whole outside world answer to Greece. He fused European modernism with Byzantine iconography and ancient Greek form, creating a visual language that did not exist before him. “Father of modern Greek art” sounds like the kind of title people invent for plaques. With Parthenis, it’s basically a job description.

Last week, his monumental painting Poésie (Annunciation) sold at Bonhams in Paris for €1.25 million, more than double its high estimate and a record for the artist. The full Greek Sale brought in more than €4.3 million, with other Greek artists also setting major marks. For one night in Paris, Greek art was priced less like a regional category and more like what it is: a serious tradition the rest of the market has been slow to respect. 

Parthenis painted figures that look suspended between a Byzantine icon, an ancient relief, and a dream. His figures looked serene, spiritual, stripped down, but never empty. He did not chase trends, but changed the room and let everyone else catch up. The €1.25 million is impressive. The fact that it still feels like overdue recognition says more.

🎭 May 22 - June 7, 2026, “The Life of Byron”, The Greek Canter, Melbourne

💃 May 28-31, 2026, Ethos Greek Festival, Stamford, Connecticut

💃 May 29-3, 2026, Greek Festival, Boise, Idaho

💃 May 29-31, 2026, San Jose Greek Festival, San Jose, California

😂 October 23, 2026, Sooshi Mango stand up comedy, Thessaloniki

Mystras is built into the side of Mount Taygetos, five kilometers from Sparta, and looks like someone stacked an entire Byzantine city onto a hill and then left history to finish the job. The Franks built the castle in 1249. The Byzantines took it over and turned it into the last great capital of a dying empire — a place of art, philosophy, politics, and the specific intensity that happens when brilliant people know the clock is running out. The last Byzantine emperor, Konstantinos Palaiologos, was crowned here before leaving for Constantinople to die defending it. Then Mystras emptied out, the churches and palaces crumbled into the hillside, and in 1989 UNESCO finally arrived with the obvious conclusion: yes, this matters.

Last week, the Palace of the Despots reopened after 42 years of restoration and a €60 million overhaul. New museum galleries, a restored Throne Room, improved access, and an automated firefighting system now protect frescoes that survived six centuries and are not about to lose to one careless spark. The palace sits above the ruins, looking over churches with frescoes that still seem alive, stone lanes built for people with stronger calves than ours, and the Laconian plain stretching below. You understand very quickly why everyone who ever took this place wanted to keep it.

Mystras is five kilometers from Sparta, which means you can visit one of the most important Byzantine sites in Greece and then drive ten minutes to a city famous for saying as little as possible. The contrast is perfect. Go early, enter from the upper gate, and walk downhill through the ruins. Bring water. There is very little shade, and the hill has no interest in your step count.

⛪ Pantanassa Monastery — Still active, still stunning, and maintained by the nuns who give Mystras its only living monastic heartbeat.

🏛️ Agios Demetrios — Where the last Byzantine emperor was crowned. Stand there for a minute. History does the rest.

🍊 Sparta’s main square, after — Cold orange juice, mezze, and the satisfaction of earning both.

🥾 Top gate to bottom gate — Two to three hours if you do it properly. Downhill is the civilized direction. Don’t be a hero.

Loukoumades are fried dough balls drowned in honey, dusted with cinnamon, and sometimes topped with walnuts. Ancient Greeks served them to Olympic victors, which means the original post-workout reward was not protein powder but hot dough covered in honey. The outside is crisp, the inside is air, the honey goes everywhere, and eating them neatly is a sign you don’t understand the assignment. Order a plate, burn your mouth on the first one because you couldn’t wait, and respect 2,500 years of correct decision-making.

Late last year, a Klimt sold for the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.

An outlier sure, but it wasn't a fluke. U.S. auction sales grew 23.1% in 2025. The $1-5mm segment even grew 40.8% YoY.

Meanwhile, Apollo’s chief economist Torsten Slok said to expect ‘zero in return in the S&P 500 over the coming decade.’

So, that's where it gets interesting.

Each environment is unique, but after dot-com, post war and contemporary art grew about 24% annually for a decade. After 2008, about 11% for 12 years.

It’s also had near-zero correlation with the S&P 500 since ‘95.*

Now, Masterworks lets you invest in shares of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso.

Shares can sell quickly, but my subscribers can skip the waitlist:

Skip the waitlist

^{*Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}

🇬🇷 Mystras Helped Spark the Renaissance. The philosopher Gemistos Plethon lived in Mystras and helped revive interest in Plato. His ideas traveled to Italy and influenced Renaissance thinkers, meaning a hillside city near Sparta quietly helped Europe remember how to think in Greek.

That’s it for now. A Parthenis painting finally got the price it deserved and Mystras waited 600 years for someone to fix the palace. Both got there eventually.

Catch you next week for more news, drama and deep dives. 🧿 Stay Greek. [email protected]