Nafplio

We picked up our hire car and left Athens, to drive to the Peloponnese. The initial part of the trip was a bit tricky getting used to the traffic and driving on the wrong side of the road, but Bruce coped reasonably well. Making to our first stop, the Corinth Canal. This was constructed in the late 1800’s and took 12 years to complete.

As you can see this was a pretty major feat. Unfortunately, it is not used much these days since the ships have become too large to navigate the narrow passage.

After the Canal, we went on to the Temple of Apollo, this was our one monument or museum that we were prepared to pay for on each day. It was a nice drive through the countryside to get to this out of the way temple in the town of Archea Korinthos.

Our last spot on the drive to Nafplio was at the Temple of Zeus in Nemea. Again an interesting drive but when we got there, it was a bit same old, same old, so we were happy to take a quick look from the outside and then continue on to our hotel.

When we got to Nafplio, Bruce drove up a couple of very narrow alleyways, getting some bad looks from staff setting up outside tables and ended up in a lovely little square right outside our hotel. It looked very cute and the inside was very impressive, old antique furnishing, narrow staircase and doors with real keys. We loved our room, with its kingsized bed and refurbished bathroom. Unfortunately; We couldn’t park there, so after dropping off our luggage we drove back down to the port and found a parking spot between our two yachts.

On our second day, we drove up to the Palamidi Castle, which overlooks the town of Nafplio. You could easily see that when the town was being attacked, everyone would traipse up the 800m high hill and ensconce themselves inside the castle. It would have been impenetrable at the time it was built.

After the castle we drove along the Mediterranean to a small town called Kandia, where we sat by the beach having milkshake. The beach was black sand and the water was very warm, according to Rosie. Neither one of us actually went for a swim.

We had a walk around town later in the day and saw a couple of nice sites, we loved the little motor bike all done up for the toy store, and the steps to no-where were impressive.

Then as we went our for dinner that night, there was a local wedding taking place near our square, so we took a good look as the bride arrived.

Our third day saw us take a trip to the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, which is one of the major archeological sites in Greece. The theatre was very impressive and had a capacity of 12000, Rosie thought they could hold a women’s football game there since there was plenty of seating. I thought the stage was just big enough for them to play on since they wouldn’t have to kick too far.

The other ruins in the area were pretty normal. You could see where they had been restoring one of the temples but must have run out of money and stopped. All the scaffolding was still in place but a lot of rust could be seen, so they stopped a long time ago.

It was a pity that we didn’t plan the next part of our trip better, Bruce randomly picked out a site called the Sunken City of Epidaurus. It was a lovely drive and we weaved our way down to an isolated beach on narrow roadways. Once there, you could see people lounging on chairs or out in the water 30m off shore snorkling and viewing the underwater ruins. We didn’t bring our bathers (we did yesterday) and hence missed the perfect opportunity to take a swim with a purpose. All up though it was another pleasant day.