Nafplion

---

This is my favourite spot on the itinerary. It has great historical sites in the vicinity, good shopping, lots of great restaurants, awesome gelaterias and an inviting atmosphere without the plastic you get with a North American tourist trap. It also has good swimming and an ok beach. I understand there is a better beach around the corner, as well.

We started our sightseeing by taking a taxi to Palamidi castle. It was well worth the 5 euro not to have to climb the 999 stone steps leading up there in 25-30 degree heat. The view was amazing and the castle enormous. We walked around for a couple of hours without seeing it completely as we found out later that some of our group had seen things we missed. The location is extremely defensible, perched on the cliffs the way it is. The walls were, of course, several feet thick and some seemed to hang out in space so you wonder how on earth the Venetians managed to get them installed in the first place. They had a lovely little chapel in the 'living space' of the castle, beside some large store rooms and in the corner of one of the store rooms was a tiny prison cell. It was tall enough to stand in and probably long enough to lie down and maybe wide enough that you could stretch out your arms without touching the walls. With no windows and a cell beside with a tiny door to both tiny rooms it would have been a miserable spot to be in solitary confinement; real punishment, not like what we have now!

We decided to walk down from the castle and my legs were trembling by the time we reached the bottom. At one point we could see four or five switchbacks of the stairs below us it was so steep. At another point we spotted an 'oasis', a taverna with what looked like a stream running through it and decided to have lunch there when we reached the bottom. The stream turned out to be a waterfall flowing into a pond but it was still a lovely location. The menu was terrible, breakfast only, so we decided to just have fresh lemon juice. Oh man, was it ever just lemon juice and water! No sugar and tart as anything but good just the same.

After that we went into town to get some lunch and went to a place I had seen that had good prices at the beginning of the shopping street in front of our hotel. I had rabbit with onions (7 euro) which was just that, half a rabbit and some onions in a creamy, orangy sauce. The food was good but the service needed work. For dinner we went to a pretty little taverna set up in an alley with lots of plants all around. Four of us decided to share a mixed plate and some appy's. It wasn't bad but the mixed plate was plain hamburger, chicken fillet, pork fillet and something else with lots of fries instead of something exotic as we had hoped. The Greek salad was good, fried potatoes with cheese merely fries with a little cheese melted on top, and the cheese balls nothing extraordinary. A good filling meal but nothing spectacular.

---