A Day of Beach and Rest

On Sunday, Paul and I took a break and just wandered around.  We went on a nice walk:

to a beach, where we both put our feet in:

Then I made sure to get a good picture of the 999 stairs I climbed up and down - hopefully, you can spot them along the cliff:

And finally, a lovely view of the Old Town of Nafplio from the pier:

A Tube with a View

View from atop the Fortress of Palamidi

On Friday, we climbed 999 steps up the side of a large hill to the Fortress of Palamidi.  For anyone that knows me, this is quite the feat since I'm not the fondest of heights.  One of my goals for this trip is to work on that, so I'm going to take this opportunity to pat myself on the back and reward myself with gelato for making it both up and down those 999 steps.  (I like to reward myself with gelato on just about any occasion I can.)  Also, as I'm sure you can guess, I did not "cleap over."  Neither did Paul, although he may have wanted to at one point while I had his hand in a serious death grip.

The Fortress of Palamidi sits on a hill above Nafplio. Built in the 1710s, it's a sprawling fortress full of barracks, food storage areas, a church, and my favorite (because I like saying it), "murder holes."  Barring the occasional fear-inducing precipice, it's a fun place to wander around.

That's the church behind the tree.

At one point, I ducked through a tunnel and then noticed another tunnel right next to it.  Curious to see where that one lead, I peeked in and promptly announced to Paul that it was "just a tube with a view."  Since he couldn't stop laughing, I thought it might make a good post title.  

I'm standing next to the tube with a view.

Also neat about this fortress is that you can really explore quite a lot of it - not much is roped off. There's a small area that was called a prison at one point even though it was just a secondary gunpowder magazine.  I can see why one would call it a prison though - we had to duck through a tiny entrance to get into this small, cave-like space (I have no idea why we look so happy.  Seriously, it was like a scary dungeon in there!):

Just a few more cool photos:

Don't look now but I think there's a creeper (the Minecraft variety) in that building!

Food, Glorious Food!

We are enjoying a mix of eating out and hunting for local grocery stores for eating in.  One thing that seems to be common in Greece are outdoor restaurant areas featuring comfy couches and chairs:

This isn't the greatest picture of the seating, but Paul is on a couch with lots of pillows, which is surrounded by more cushy furniture ideal for lounging.  The only drawback is the smoking.  It feels like more people smoke in Europe (at least in Ireland and Greece, anyway).  We can't quite decide if it's the bans on smoking in public areas in the U.S. warping our views, or if it really is more common here.  Either way, while these restaurant areas are super-comfy, it's not as fun to linger with all the smoke.

We also enjoyed a tasty meal indoors on a rainy day.  We were trying to find a more authentic Greek restaurant, and I think we may have partially succeeded (it's hard to really know in popular tourist areas).  They even invited us into the kitchen to see all our food options, which was pretty fun!

Some R&R in Nafpllio

After Athens, we headed to Nafplio (also known as Nafplion and Navplion, making Google searches for buses rather confusing) for some much needed rest and relaxation.

The small family run pension at which we are staying (Pension Isabo, if you're ever in Nafplio!) is nearly perfect (minus the fact that we seem to be near the late night hangout district - nothing some earplugs can't solve):

It has two balconies.  A smaller one with a great view down a street chalk full of stores and people, and a larger one that is great for mealtime or relaxing with a cup of tea:

Also, the bougainvillea is truly lovely here:

In fact, we like Nafplio so much that we're staying a couple extra days.  It has nothing to do with the fact that we couldn't bear the thought of trying to coordinate buses to get to Kalamata and then more buses to get back to Patra to ferry over to Italy.  Nothing at all.  We certainly aren't eagerly anticipating the day we can actually start using our Eurail pass either....