Nafplio

A lot has happened in the last week (including a futbol game where there was a HUGE fight in the stands) but most importantly was our trip to Nafplio.  Nafplio is one of Greek's prettiest and most romantic towns (according to my lonely planet tourist book).  Brian had been here in 2001 with the Junior National Team and fell in love with it so he wanted to share  it with me, and I of course fell in love with it as well!  It is located on a small port on the east side of the Peloponnese, about 2hrs away from Patra.  We pulled out my book and found a pension they recommended so we headed straight there when we got into town hoping they would have a room available at such late notice.  Luckily they did and the receptionist was so jolly and friendly he instantly put me in a great mood.  The pension was called Pension Marianna and sits way up on the hill so our room had this magnificent view of the town and the water.  We could even walk out the back and look up to another magnificent view of the breathtaking fortress up on the tip top of the mountain.  After dropping our stuff we immediately hit the streets and went for a little walk.  The town is graced with attractive narrow streets filled with adorable shops and restaurants.  We instantly saw the Museum of Komboloi and we got excited.  The Komboloi are the worry beads that all of the Greek men flop around their hands when sitting at coffee or at a futbol game or just chatting with their friends.  It is a very Greek custom and we were intrigued.  Brian even entertained the idea of getting one but I kind of talked him out of it since it is such a Greek custom and well....we aren't Greek :-).

Nafplio was the first capital of Greece after Independence and has been a major port since the Bronze Age.  Despite its relatively small size it built three fortresses to protect its strategic position.  We visited two of these magnificent fortresses.  The first you can see in the pictures sits on a small islet and is called Bourtzi.  We took a little boat out there on our first day to explore.  The views of the sea and back towards the town are beautiful.  The second fortress is called the Palamidi fortress and is located 216m up on top of a rock overlooking the town (you can kind of see it behind Brian and I in the picture).  It was built by the Venetians between 1711 and 1714, and is regarded as a masterpiece of military architecture.  It is VERY intimidating but the minute we got to Nafplio we decided, we are going to do the walk.  There are two options of getting to the top of this fortress, one is walking the 999 steps to the top, the second option is driving.  Of course, us being our young energetic selves decided we were going to walk.  After all, you can always drive up there but someday we will not be able to make the walk!  So we decided to leave that for our second day, for the morning when it wasn't quite so hot.  After a large lunch our first day and a short nap we had dessert and some coffee on the water and hit the sack, gearing up for our big adventure.

We woke up kind of questioning our decision to make the walk, after all we had our very own car and we could zip right up to the top, even though I argued our car had the potential to zip right back downwards unannounced........so we eventually motivated, after our small pension breakfast (still no pancakes, omelettes or strawberry/banana smoothies we crave).  So off we went beginning the ascent.  Supposedly the number of actual steps is up for debate, so naturally Brian decided to count all of them.  Once we began I was immediately drawn into the views and couldn't stop taking pictures.  We could see over to the other side of the peninsula and saw a beautiful beach with only one person wading in the water (we should have brought our bathing suits!).  It was a beautiful day and we started early enough because the stairs were still in the shade.  After about 912 steps, and lots of water and short breaks later (only about 15min. actually) we made it to the fortress.  It was amazing being up there.  The fortress isn't actually much to look at, a bunch of stacked stones to be honest, but it is well preserved and quite large and unlike anywhere I've been in the states they let you explore on your own.  There are no railings to catch you if you trip and plummet off the side, no restrictions on where you can go up or down or thru.  So of course we went exploring.  Brian wanted to go as far as possible so I followed him.  In the top picture you can see we found these stairs seemingly leading off the cliff but they lead us to a path around the side of the mountain, over a very creaky unstable bridge, under a hornets nest and basically into rattlesnake heaven.  After hearing two rattlesnakes at my feet I panicked (to say it mildly) and made Brian leave.  That might be the last time I follow him to explore ;-).  We made the descent with much more speed and once we got to the bottom we knew we would be hurting the next few days (oh the burning calves).  We walked around the town for a little while longer, had another coffee and then headed back to Patra in time for Brian to make his evening practice.  Brian and I have both listed Nafplio as one of our favorite cities and we are excited to take our next visitors there!