To Nafplio and Back

Hi everyone! Seems like eons since we last wrote...really its only been a couple of days. Both of us want a chance to tell you all of what we have been up to since we were last in Athens. So, we are going to take turns - just to make things confusing :)

June 9: Today was both really good, and really bad. The morning was good, we got up, went to the bus terminal - which we found no promblem I might add. Jan and I are getting a hang of this travelling thing me thinks. Any who we got there, bought our tickets, got some breakfast and waited at our terminal/platform thingy. Our bags were put on the bus, we got on, and the bus went in the direction we wanted it to. All in all we were pretty happy with the morning! Our drive took us throuugh all of the little towns that we thought we were going to get to see - Argos, Mycene, and Corinth. As we went through, we realized that there wasn't much left to see in these ancient and once magnificent towns. We started to talk about forgoing a visit to them, but kept and open game plan as we headed towards Nafplio. The not so great part of the day started when we finally got to the town Napflio.

OK so I had found this place in our guidebook, which discribed it as a cheap place that was alittle out of the way from the old town. So we get into the bus station which is in the old town of Nafplio, a quaint beautiful venetian town that was protected by a massive castle perched on the mountain overlooking the bay and town. Any ways so when i had made the reservations it was very, well disorganized. But the man on the phone who spoke some english said to just call when we got into town and they would give us directions to the hotel. We got there, found a phone booth and called and they said to take a taxi and they would pay for it... so we flagged down a taxi and got there. During this d\Danielle was mentioning to me that this did not seem like such a good idea and that maybe we should stay somewhere else...but I didn't listen to her good sense. Anyways we did get there, and a little old lady came out and paid the taxi driver. So the hotel had like a cafe attachted to it where several creepy greasy greeks were loitering smoking, drinking, and inspiring little confidence in the establishment. So the little old lady started nattering at us in her broken english and motioned us to go up stairs. The place was VERY dirty, it was on the verge of being a dilapitated condemend building. Our rooms fit the board, the woman showed us in. The sheets appeared to not have been washed in this century, and the beds were not really full beds and the mattresses were only about an inch thick. I thought to myself this is going to be grim, to top it off though, the door did not lock nor were the bathrooms very appealing. But come on the place was a bargain, for 11 euros a night! The old woman had come up while we were trying not to touch anything and started demanding that we had to pay for the night, Danielle was looking very skepitcal about the whole place and told me not to pay but i just paid the lady the one night just for her to go away.

With some discussion, we decided that this place was not going to be a safe, acceptable, nor smart place to stay. We opened the guide book, found the next place on the list which told us that we could stay a very nice romantic hotel in the old quarter for just a little more, so we jumped ship. We got into our waiting cab and took off to the hotel on the other side of the city (2 minutes away). The hotel that we ended up staying at was called the Hotel Kapodistras...or something close to that. We were so relieved that we were in a place that we could use the bathrooms that we decided to stay in and get cleaned up and plan out the night and the next day. After a shower Jan and I headed out for dinner. We found a great local place just a stones throw from the ocean. We ate a huge greek salad and some slovaki for dinner. Then we found a great little patio bar to drink a glass of "wine from the barrel" the cheapest stuff that they served, on the chairs looking out onto the water. Even though the wine was piss wine we had one of the best nights sitting there talking and watching the sun set over the water. Our very last task of the day was to grab some gelato. We each had a cone and walked along the pier until we were finished. Both exhausted, we called it a night. BUt on our way back to the hotel, we stumbled onto a concert that was being put on infront of the town church. We sat just as it started and listened to this Greek Classical string band perform Mozart and Behtoven, it was really neat - and free - which made it even more enjoyable. So, all in all, with a "minor" problem in the middle of the day, the rest was great, and it ended on a good note.

June 10: Today was a great day. We were able to fit in a bunch of stuff. We got up, had our free breakfast from the hotel, and headed off to see the castle. The castle is at the very height of the town, in that it is situated on the highest peak in the tiny town. It is a venician castle built in 1686, but only finished in 1714. Did I mention that to get to the castle you have to go up by car or walk the 857 steps? Yeah we walked. We definitely worked off our breakfast! By the time we were at the top we were sweating and gulping down our water as fast as we could. Please remember that it was already 30 degrees out by the time we undertook the climb at 10:30 in the morning. We finally made it to the top and started to explore. The castle was pretty amazing. Most of it is presevered from when it was built. The morning was spent up there climbing around on walls and in and out of different bastions. Every cannon hole and ever murder hole Jan would pretend to shoot someone. We imagined, as we walked through, what rooms would be for what, why certain walls were added later, and what it would have been like at it's height. It was fun. The hordes of school kids got a little annoying, but they made good target practice for our aspiring 17th century malitia man Jan.

After we were good and sweaty we walked down, back to our hotel to change for the beach. By 1pm we were at the beach, and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and tanning in what can only be described as a magnificent bay. The water was just cold enough to cool us off, but warm enough so that we spent a good portion of our time swimming. Our view from the beach, and more accentuated from the water was the towering cliff side on which the Venitian castle sat. Jan and I floated there for what seemed liked hours just staring at the magnitued of the castle. It was a perfect afternoon. It was 4:30pm when we left but it seemed like we had been there all day - especially for Jan. Poor guy got burnt in the afternoon sun, even though we had dunked him in a vat of sunscreen. While I turned a nice brown color, Jan turned a nice lobster color - just on his shoulders, but still. He wasn't happy, but after a shower and some solarcaine he was feeling ok enough to venture out for a late supper. We went out around 7, and ended up going to the same place as the night before. We shared a seafood pasta - really good!!! To cap the night off, we had to have some gelato again, so we did. As the sun had long set when we finished, we called it a night.

TODAY: Today was basically just a travel day. We got up, had breakfast, packed, checked out and waited for our bus down town in Napflio. We got on the bus....then got off the bus back in Athens 2 and a half hours later...

Getting off the bus was no problem, but when we got to the city bus station which was to take us into town there was no one manning the ticket booth for us to purchase tickets into town. THere was only a sign which said 11-16 and some greek, we asked and were told that the bus workers were on strike for that period of time... We were virtually stranded at this bus station, which was massive by the way. Our way out came in the form of a cab driver asking people waiting for the bus if they were going to Omnia (the metro station the bus was going to go to) Since we did not want to wait untill 4, we took him up and pilled into the cab with 2 other greeks. The cab driver, well was not particularly crazy, but his driving was... For the entire ride we were praying for our lives, we thought for certain that this ride was going to be our untimely deaths. Amazingly enough we did survive. After getting out we thanked the cabby and were glad to be back on our own feet. We hopped onto the metro - which was not on strike, and got to our stop. We already knew the way to our hostel, so we walked to couple blocks checked in and started typing this blog! :) Tomorrow we are in Athens, we are going to check out the Archeological Museum and wander the plaka. It should be good - I think it gets up to 33 tomorrow - so being inside for some of it makes Jan really happy.

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