Blogs from Nafplion, Pelopennese, Greece, Europe - page 5

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 ... read more

Hey all, Here are some more pictures of our time in Italy and a few from Corfu. We left Corfu yesterday and have made our way to Nafplio (crossing the area that was apparently hit by an earthquake last week) in Greece. Tomorrow we go to visit the ancient site of Mycenae to see some amazing ruins. All I can say is that WE LOVED CORFU!!! Great weather, beautiful beaches, good food, friendly people... we had a very nice vacation from our vacation ;-). We were there two and a half weeks and I finally finished up my PADI Open Water diving cerification. The four dives were incredible; crystal clear water, lots of cool fish and the best part was I didn't horribly embarrass myself by making some mistake and having to be rescued. We look ... read more

And so to Athina...Finally out of the airport and on our journey in our rental VW gripping on to seat as Rob drove on left side of car and on the wrong side of the road!!! Motorists here are crazy, with no obeying of the road rules or speeds, it is free for all, so i hang on for dear life as we enter Athena, an old tired city expanding for miles beneath the majestic Acropolis on the mount. Roaming the corridors of the city, up and down laneways, paved with a variety of tavernas, mixing modern with the old traditional, it isn't hard to find a cold Mythos (greek beer) and greek delicacies.. rob hanging out for a traditional souvlaki like back in melbourne! only they serve them here with bread and chips... as we ... read more

On Saturday we left Delphi and drove to Olympia. In Olympia we went to the ancient ruins of where the first Olympics were. It was so cool! The ruins looked just like all the other ruins that we had seen, except we were actually allow to climb all over the rocks, so that was really neat because at all the other places they have ropes blocking the ruins off and people with whistles everywhere yelling at you if you get too close. But here, it didn’t matter; we could climb everywhere! It was really awesome! There were a lot of ruins too. And hardly anything was restored. In the main temple there, they restored one pillar just to show how it used to be, but left the rest of the temple alone. So I thought that ... read more

NAFPLIO Beautiful Greek town on the mediterrranean with a Venetian castle standing guard above it, on a clifftop. In its hay-day, Nafplio was a thriving Venetian port and the architecture of the buildings in the old town along with its "piazza" make you feel like you might still be in Italy. Swimming was amazing. Warm, clear, calm water. People were very friendly here, the view from our balcony was top notch, and we had a few excellent dinners at small family restaurants: stuffed grape leaves, fresh (not frozen) calamari, rabbit in tomato sauce, and stuffed lamb. We also took a day trip to Ancient Mycenae (pronounced Mikenas). I'm sure everyone saw Brad Pitt and the Myceneans battle Eric Bana and the Trojans? Anyhow, this place was the Myceneans home base, and was even settled by humans ... read more