The walk from Nafplion to Arvanitia Beach. That structure slinking up the mountain is Palamidi Fortress, which the rest of them were climbing while I was paddling in the azure waters. Smart choice on my part, huh?
From Delphi we drove south to Nafplion, what will be our only stop on the Peloponnese Peninsula. Nafplion has been a major Aegean port since the Bronze Age and was occupied by the Venetians and Ottomans each for a few hundred years. More recently it was the original capital of Greece during and immediately after the war of independence (from the Ottoman empire) in the 1830s. Today, with its elegant Venetian mansions, narrow streets, cute cafés, sidewalk restaurants, and of course that incomparable Mediterranean Sea, it’s a tourist mecca.
Dan, photographing the Lion Gate at Mycenae, the main entrance to the citadel. It dates from the 16th century BC and is the only monumental Mycenaean sculpture still in existence. Amazingly, it appears to have stood there over the millennia, unlike most ancient ruins that had collapsed and only in recent times been rebuilt.
While enjoying the modern joys of Nafplion, you’re never far from history of course, this being Greece and all. A key adventure, then, was do drive north to Mycenae, home to the ancient Mycenaeans who were the most powerful Greeks during much of the second millennium BC; the period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to 1100 BC, in fact, is known as the Mycenaean era. And to put it in its Homeric context, Agamemnon, the leader of Greek forces in the Trojan War, was king of Mycenae when he took to the seas to rescue Helen, whom Paris of Troy had abducted. (You can read the Iliad for more details.) While I stayed home to deal with some health insurance issues Mark & the many Germains made the day trip.
Laura, Elizabeth, and Charlie signal the 1,000th step on the way up the Palamidi Fortress
Dan & Laura, having successfully climbed the fortress
Nafplion was a short stop for us – two nights and then back to the Athens airport for a flight to Crete. As the site of our first Mediterranean swim, though, it was a nice little detour. Now on to see why those Cretans have such a bad reputation.
The morning view of the Bourtzi fortress from our hotel, another fortification built by the Venetians
Elizabeth & Charlie atop the Palamidi Fortress
Sunset in front of our hotel
Charlie, demonstrating that adolescents can occasionally be engaging, fun people
OK, this was from our trip to Greece in 2012, but I wanted photographic evidence that I was once atop the Palamidi Fortress, too
And while I’m posting old pictures, Mark was showing us some pictures from his 1984 trip to Europe when Dan noticed that this was the back of Lion’s Gate. You see, Mark didn’t know he’d been to Mycenae previously; it was only when faced with photographic evidence that he concluded he apparently had been there 31 years earlier.
