Italy - Greece Vacation 1999 - Nafplio

Table of Contents

20 May 1999

The original plan was that we'd leave Nafplio today, and head further south to some beaches in the southern Pelopponnese. But when we got to Nafplio and saw the Venetian quarter, and particularly when we saw the hotel, we decided to stay longer.

We're at Hotel Byron, in the middle of the Venetian quarter. The book mentioned that it was the best hotel in town, despite earning only a "C" rating (top hotels get an "A"). But even so, we weren't expecting such beautiful rooms. Imagine a large, airy turn-of-the-century Venetian hotel room in the middle of a picturesque Greek village, you'll have a pretty good picture of what it's like.

So faced with the prospect of continuing the city-a-day deathmarch or actually stopping to relax somewhere, we decided to appreciate paradise when we found it. So we asked the hotel keeper to extend our stay by two more nights.

In Nafplio. Look at everyone's faces. "Oh yeah, this rocks."

We walked around the Venetian district of Nafplio for a few hours, stopping for lunch by the water at one point. The Venetian quarter was built by -- you guessed it -- Venetians when they controlled this area in the twilight of their power, in the 1700's. Although there are no canals, you can definitely see the influence of Venice in the narrow streets, the verandas, and the foliage.

After that, we crashed for several hours, finally waking for dinner around 9.

We tried the Restaurant Hellas, where an amiable Greek man in a horribly stained shirt asked us in a conspiratorial (but still loud) whisper if we'd like real Greek food. He brought out plate after plate until we all leaned back in our chairs and begged just to be left alone to finish our wine.

Then it was back to the hotel, where we played cards on the patio under the light of the oil lamps, looking out over Nafplio.

This morning, we decided to tackle the Palamida fortress. It's a beautiful, extensive fortress built on top of the hill towering above Nafplio. It was built after several years of effort by the Venetians, and taken by the Turks a year after it was completed.

Forrest and Chris, getting ready for the 999 steps. If you look carefully, you can see the stair winding its way up the cliff face in the middle of the picture.

The real draw to the fortess for us, of course, is that it bragged of a "seemingly endless" staircase -- 999 steps. So after a quick breakfast at a local creperie, we grabbed our water bottles and started up.

I guess the other stairs on the trip had conditioned us well, because we made it to the top in short order. The views of the surrounding countryside were as spectacular as we were promised.

The fortress' many walls were all available for us to climb on, so at many places you would find yourself walking on a thin slice of mortar with a 100' drop on either side. Chris in particular had an uncomfortable tendency to hop from wall to wall, peer down a cliff face, then turn with his heels to the drop and obliviously ask questions about the fortress' construction.

[We've just moved back to the creperie. I had to try their hot white chocolate drink again.]

After visiting the fortress, we changed into our swimsuits and headed down to the municipal beach for our first swim in the Mediterranean. From the fortress the water was a brilliant translucent blue-green, and it looked just as inviting on the shore. We swam and sunned ourselves for an hour or two, but then the wind picked up and the temperature dropped, so we retreated back to the hotel.

Once at the hotel, we agreed to siesta again until 8, but Chris and I had too much energy to sit still. So we decided to wander off into the non-Venetian parts of Nafplio to search for a bookstore. Now that we've got time on our hands I'd like to read something.

The rest of Nafplio is a lot like the modern parts of Athens, although not as polluted or overbuilt. People would stop at the sight of us, wondering what tourists were doing in this part of town.

As it was, we returned to the Venetian quarter empty-handed. The only bookstore we could find was a children's bookstore, and I wanted more substantial reading.

22 May 1999

On the bus back to Athens.

On Thursday we ate dinner at the book's top recommended restaurant in Nafplio: the Old Mansion. A tall Greek man with good English and a cool accent took our orders, although it was one of those typically Greek ordering experiences where by persuasion or intimidation the waiter guides you towards the few dishes on the menu they really feel like serving that day.

Anyway (and you're probably used to me saying this by now) the meal was excellent. I wonder if my perpetual admiration for foreign food is actually just a reflection of how poorly I cook for myself at home.

Whatever. We paid for our meal and left, just as a pair of Greek folk guitarists was warming up. We seem to always eat too early here.

We wandered towards the waterfront again (the Old Mansion was situated in one of the narrow alleys of the Venetian quarter. We were surrounded by cats the entire time, particularly one gregarious mother and her three kittens).

[The Greeks have a lot of eco-friendly power supplies. I've seen solar panels everywhere (for hot water, I think), and we've passed several wind-powered wells.]

We were looking for a bar that would let us play cards. We spotted a good candidate -- a bar with a lot of empty tables: they needed our business. But when the waiter walked up to take our order, he looked at our cards and said gravely: "There is a problem." So we went back to the hotel.

We started playing cards again. Chris retired early, and as the three of us dealt another hand a nearby couple started talking to us. They were a Scottish couple from Glasgow, celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary.

Their advice for a healthy marriage was to walk a lot. "If you're marching then you're not fighting" said the wife in her thick accent. It was a lot better advice than what was being dispensed by a drunken party two terraces above us.

The Scottish couple left around midnight, and at that point we decided to call it a night as well.

The next day we had another crepe breakfast, and headed off to the beach at Tolo. Tolo is a small, fairly ugly village to the southeast of Nafplio. But it had a big, beautiful sandy beach. It was one of the clearest days we'd seen so far, and as we walked down from the bus station to the blue waters we thought "now *this* is a vacation."

Tamara and Forrest on the beach at Tolo. Chris is a black speck in the water in the middle of the photo.

We picked a spot for ourselves and threw down our towels. Chris amused himself by finding interesting ways to kill ants with sand.

A shot of Chris at Tolo. He didn't want to come out of the water.

It was warmer than the previous day, and the shallow water was well-heated by the sun, so we stayed in a long time. We finally left around two-thirty, when clouds started rolling in.

As a result, we're all pretty badly burned. I reek of the Aloe Vera I robbed over my back and shoulders this morning. Chris seems to be the best off, with only a small burn on his back.

When we returned to the hotel, the apologetic concierge asked us to move to different rooms, as other guests had already reserved our palatial quarters for the weekend. Our new rooms were smaller but still among the best we've seen on our trip, and the view was better.

The view from the new hotel room, looking down on the Venetian quarter of Nafplio and the bay beyond.

Again the plan was to siesta until dinner, and again Chris and I had too much energy to stay in our rooms. So we wandered around some more.

We finally managed to find a store with a large (-ish) selection of English books. But they wanted 4-5 thousand drachma (around $15) for a paperback, so I decided to stick with newspapers.

After browsing the bookstore, we went down to the waterfront for Greek coffee and ice cream, and talked for a while. Greek coffee is very strong and bitter, but in the end we decided we liked it (although neither of us had the courage to drink the sludge that remained at the bottom of the cup).

We headed back to the hotel to collect Forrest and Tamara, but we met them in the streets. So we all headed back to the creperie for a final white chocolate.

When we thought a decent dinner time had been reached (9:30), we wandered through the alleys in search of a restaurant. We found one in a narrow tilted alley, again with many cats. It was the familiar routine: we had wine, pretended to order, and had another good meal. We were serenaded by a musician who played the accordian and the trumpet at the same time. Or so Forrest claims: I didn't actually see it with my own eyes. The musician's son walked from table to table, asking for money.

After dinner we headed to a funky-looking bar just off the waterfront. We didn't even attempt to play cards, we just drank beer and made fun of the Greek sitcom playing silently on a corner TV.

This morning we got up, had our third and final crepe breakfast in Nafplio, and checked out of our hotel. It was a bittersweet parting. The owner gave us large Nafplio calendars when we left, which made us happy. But then we realized that we somehow had to fit the oversized calendars into our already-bursting backpacks, which made us sad. Finally, everyone but Forrest was happy again when we realized we could stuff them into his large bag.

Then it was a quick walk down the alleyways to the bus station (actually just a busy intersection that had been designated the "station"), and now we're on a bus again.

Greek buses are interesting -- they remind me of pictures of South American buses, just because the drivers hang lots of trinkets from the ceiling.

This bus is pretty tame -- there are just a lot of air fresheners hanging above us. The air fresheners are very necessary, since it appears that the ticket collectors haven't bathed since the Turks were in power.

But the bus from Athens to Nafplio had a whole menagerie hanging from the ceiling (in addition to the requisite air fresheners), including a lot of stuffed animals and a pillow with a no-smoking sign embroidered on it.

I'll definitely come back to the Pelopponese some day. I'd like to go hiking in the rocky hills and the ruins. You'd need a bunch of socks, two shirts and all the water you could carry.

I'd also like to go back to the beaches. When it comes to the urban environment, no one is as stylish as the Italians. But Greek women definitely know how to dress for the beach.

On the bus back to Athens. Note Forrest has assumed his typical travelling position.