Phoebus Traditional Apartments Peloponnese

Nafplio (or Naplion, Nafplion, etc- it's spelled many different ways) is a cute town in the Peloponnese. It was the original capital of Greece, before it became Athens. It’s a port town on the water, with its top sights being the three fortresses within the Old Town area. For a former capital, it’s much smaller-feeling than you’d expect. You can walk around the Old Town in just a few minutes. It’s a really cute town ...

Decided to take a break day and hang out along the beach. Merely 100m from our campground was a lovely rocky shoreline, But taking a look around, I saw ruins up on some hills beside the beach. We had unknowingly stumbled into Ancient Asine. A tiny little place, all but forgotten except for one tiny line in Homer’s Iliad mentioning them as participating in the Trojan War.

Historically, the town was ...

999 steps up the wall, 999 steps
If you should slip and happen to fall
They’ll be no more climbing on steps up the wall

One thing that makes me laugh touring some of these ancient sights is the total LACK of concern about safety. Old chipped rock steps which are far to narrow and steep with no handrail to speak of. Single straight flights of 30-40 steps (while the limit in Canada is 12 spaced with landings). Watched this poor man ...

Well, they’ve been on planes, boats, trains and cars. High time they traveled on a bus!

Going down to Monemvasia was an area I wanted to explore, but a risky venture. Easy enough to get into, but not so easy to get out of - at least considering our onward trajectory. A few roads head north, but get lost among the craggy shoreline and stop. A few go up mountainsides to insane little towns and then stop. A few others ...

... still have problems it’s not my fault.

Of course, he wanted to change my whole gear assembly. By the time he turned around to tell someone, my bike was gone! Already in the back and having the grip shift worked on. I loved how these guys were right to the point and eager to work. It took some convincing, but Brian finally talked them into changing all the cogs and cranks on my bike as well (secretly I ...

From Mycenae we head to the port city Nafplio. We took a tour of Palamidi, a military fortress that was used as a prison during the Greek War of Independence. After the war, Nafplio was the first modern capitol of Greece (and then Athens took over several years later). The size of the prison was huge, with stairs and ramps and breezeways leading to other 'wings' and buildings everywhere ...

... rather lazy... In the evening we tracked Niko down and paid him; he remarked on Paul's pleasing flute-playing, and it was good to know we hadn't been driving everyone mad. Later, we headed out to To Kastro and had a grand meal sitting on the upstairs verandah and watching the light fade from the plain. Finally, the floodlights came on on the castle hill, and we walked back to the rooms, where we had a final drink on the balcony.

... and got to Monemvasia - albeit by taxi! We were stormbound in Plaka across the gulf for two nights, no hardship really as the name means 'beach' and we walked inland to the local town of Leonidio in search of lead crew spares. Quite an experience and very different from cosmopolitan PH - especially when a coffee and a beer in the town square comes to a grand total of E3!


We then moved on to Ierakas for two more peaceful nights ...

... lines around the outside and a marble start line. This stadium could hold 30,000 people, but there was no seating, everybody sat on the "hill". We were very amused by a line of statue bases outside the stadium. They had been statues of Zeus payed for with fines for athletes who cheated, with their names on them. There were 16 of these statues (nothing much has changed in 3000 years!).

... an old cistern in total darkness After the morning expeditions we had a fancy lunch and then set off for Olympia on the other side of the Peloponese. The long drive took us to my favorite place in Greece so far. I could live in that area forever! First of all, we stayed in a four star hotel that was basically a forest lodge - absolutely incredible. Even more impressive was the magnificence of the surrounding scenery. It was out of a ...