Nafplio: Palamidi Fortress, beach, and Bourtzi

Woke up at 8.45. I had a quasi-breakfast of sesame biscuits and grape juice and was out the door by 10am and heading for the ‘999’ steps to the Palamidi Fortress. I found them easily and made my way up fairly carefully as it was very hot already.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and I snapped photos all the way up. I must have spent about an hour up there, looking at everything and walking between them. Kolokotronis’ prison was pretty amazing – you had to stoop right down to get in through two doorways and the cell itself was rough-hewn with no windows. I didn’t go into the church because I had nothing to cover myself with but it looked nice and had candles burning.

I walked back down much quicker than I’d walked up and went to the tourist office. A man gave me sketchy help in a small dingy office. He told me I couldn’t do Mycenae and Epidavros in one day, directed me to the ferry office to find out about boats to Monemvasia, and invited me for coffee in his siesta break. I smiled and left. I got the times for the Mycenae and Epidavros buses and had a walk around, getting a roll for lunch and sitting in Plateia Syntagmatos to eat it. The man was right on one point – the archaeological museum was closed, so I headed for the folklore museum, which was closed on Tuesdays. I headed back to the cool of the hotel for a mini-siesta, finding out on the way that there are no boats from Nafplio to Monemvasia except from Tolo, and only on Sundays. I worked out that I could do both Mycenae and Epidavros the next day with the bus times (John was right and tourist office man was wrong), and decided to still do Monemvasia by bus.

I got my swimmers on and walked the short distance to Aravinitia Beach. It’s white pebble (well, the pebbles are pretty huge), tiny, utterly blindingly bright, but very nice. There are deckchairs and walkways over the hot stones and they play good Spanish-style music. The water was very choppy by now after being completely flat that morning. It gets very deep very quickly and is very salty but was a perfect temperature. I swam and baked in my little space, feeling rather alone among all the attractive, tanned Greek people. I walked around the base of the Akronafplia, seeing the curious giant cacti growing out of the cliff, to the other side where I saw a strange glass box. It was sort of like a mail box, but completely sealed and with religious icons inside. I couldn’t work out what it was. Next were a couple of exclusive restaurants forming the beginning of the cafe strip. I went back to Antica gelato shop and got some strawberry this time. My friend there gave me a strawberry in it too, which was absolutely delicious frozen.

After finding out it was nearly 7pm, I went back for my camera and my watch and got a boat out to the Bourtzi island fortress for €4.
It was small compared to Palamidi of course, but very interesting and picturesque. I took lots of photos. When the boat got back, I got another chicken pitta from the same place as last night, headed back to the hotel and went to bed at 10pm.