Nafplio - Day One

 Thursday, August 20, 2026

Breakfast isn't until 8:30 and I'm wide-eyed by 5:30, and. well rested, too, so I can catch up a few photos before we go downstairs. Our table was already set for us when we came home last night! I get down juswt a few minutes before Jan and am surprised to find that Dave is the only one at the table!  Slowly we all assemble and as people are being served it becomes apparent that Jan and I must have been "behind the door" when orders were taken yesterday!  It's okay, our hotelier takes our orders and our food comes quickly.  There is a bowl of Greek (surprise!) yogurt with lots of different fruits, a plate with scrambled eggs, tomatoes, cheese, and meat, and spanakopita! It looks like too much food;  but we don't yet have lunch plans, so better to be prepared!  There is a new girl just learning the trade and she is doing great, although I throw her a curve ball by asking for decaf coffee!  It's her very first day, after all! Both the girls are wearing one-shoulder toga-like dresses which must be the hotel uniform and they both have long hair which is pulled back.  They look like sisters and are precious.

                                                     Peach and passion fruit tea for Ginger!

           That open floor space you can see is all the open floor space there is!  But we made it work!

                                        Now I have balcony envy! That's the room next to ours.

                                                                          Do you see the cabs?

                                                  

      I love the clever way he has devised to keep his visor up when he doesn't need it! And it's a Mercedes.

Kathy has a list of things she wants to do and it pretty much matches everyone else's. Our sweet girl has told me that the bus station is just behind the hotel and that we can get cabs there, too.  She suggests that a cab would be better than the bus to get to the top of the Palamidi Castle.  Or, of course, we can climb the 999 steps!

We head out the door and follow Kathy, although she is heading for the water before we ask directions and wind up at the bus station (never mind).  Even when we are half a block from the cabs lining the curb, we don't see them.  They are red and we are all conditioned to yellow cabs!

Each cab holds four and it is thirty euros round trip.  Cheap at twice the price! Our driver will wait for us for one hour, so we need to pay attention to the time.  It is an interesting fort and reminiscent of the fort at St. Augustine, with cannon ports overlooking the water and small rooms for storing cannonballs and other supplies.  Thee are bougainvillea plants everywhere, as there are in the city and in Athens, but they seem incongruous in a fort! There are olive trees, too. 

This was probably a storage area.  It is fenced off.

                                This baby found his way inside it, though!  Sure is safe in there!

                                                                              Red clay tile roofs

There are steps inside the fort, some of which are super challenging, as they are just cut into the rock and are either extremely uneven or quite tall, usually both!  Sharon and I are the shortest (and oldest) but Ginger has the most recent injury, so the fact that we make it is impressive.  At one point we meet some young Aussie and they held Ginger and Patty with the most treacherous descent.

We have explored all the nooks and crannies that interest us and are back to our cabs before our hour is up! Kathy has asked both cabbies to take us to the ferry; but only one of them (not ours) actually got the message, so when he tries to drop us off, it's at the wrong place.  There is some attempted communication but then the other cabbie calls ours and saves the day!

We walk just a short distance and a ferry is just arriving to take us on the five minute ride to the fortress in the harbor called Bourtzi Castle.  We hop off and begin our second exploration of the day.  More steps but not as intimidating as at the fortress! The water is an unreal color and it's always fun to explore.  When we've had our fill we wind up at the little café.  Kathy has a lemonade with ginger and that sounds great but we all sit around quite a while without seeing an wait staff.  Ginger goes inside to order and is told to go back and sit down!  And still no one appears so we decide to go back to the mainland.  Again, our hotelier has told us there is an entire row of "cafeterias" and surely we can find a drink there.

                                                                "Oh captain, my captain"

                                                                      Modern lighthouse

                                                    Oh no!  We better beat them to the castle!

                                                                 Look!  It's got my initials!

                                               

Indeed, there is café after café, all with outdoor seating and umbrellas. We find one, The Rendezvous, with a table for eight that is just calling our names and we settle in.  They have sour cherry juice!  Lots of those get ordered, along with an interesting array of lunch snacks.  There are spring rolls with sweet chili sauce, a Greek salad, haloumi cheese with pitas, a pizza, a "Yum Tales" smoothie and two crepes.  Mine is called a Cretan Crepe with Cretan smoked pork, tomatoes, peppers, and gruyere. There is lots of sharing and everyone is stuffed.  

                                      The proportions of juice to water to ice are right on the glass!

There is quite a discussion about tomorrow's plan in which we leave at 12:30 and visit the Oracle of Delphi at 5:00.  There is even a WhatsApp message to Barbara who is covering for Marianna, our Inside Greece contact person.  It's finally all cleared up and we decide to go back to the hotel for a nap (or blog) and regroup in the lobby at 5:00.  Then we're going to ride the trolley through town and have a gelato since Nafplio is famous for it! We'll see if anyone is hungry for dinner and/or walk along the promenade by the beach.  Some people plan to go swimming in the morning before breakfast and our departure.

                                                                                Yummy gelato!

We've seen lots of interesting outfits!  I'm going with the theory that she has a bathing suit under there.

     I suspect I wasn't as surreptitious as I thought I was.  The girls said he winked after he passed!

                                                                            In love with the doors!

                                                                            Cool!  Right?

                                                              Kathy, AKA The Cat Whisperer

                                                              The cat theme is everywhere!

                                    This was painted on an outside wall beside a children's shop.

Kathy says that the fresh flowers are probably left from the Dormition of Mary which is celebrated on the fifteen of August.  Early we were told that it is a huge festival and everyone goes home to their villages.

(You can tell when I've written on the bus in Text Edit because the fonts never quite match!)After our naps we all walk back to the water to find the trolley and we’re in luck as one is just boarding. We take over one whole car! The ride is about twenty minutes long and is narrated in Greek and English.  We see the monument to the French who fought the Ottomans and a different Lion’s Gate and churches and other commemorative monuments and when we detrain we’re ready for gelato. 

                     Monument to the French soldiers who fought against the Ottomans

                  Another Lions Gate! Lions are a theme representing strenght and ferocity.

And another! This was a gift from  the officers and soldiers of the Royal Bayerisch Brigade to their fallen colleagues.

                                                      Here's our choo-choo!

                               They're every where!  They're every where!

Unfortunately a few of us have split off from the group and there’s some hesitation about trying to regroup. The most driven of us, Jan, Sharon, and I, decide we’ll be the vanguard and have already made our selections and are heading outside when we find Art and Ginger.

                                                     For the Shel Silverstein fans

                                                       Marble sidewalks!  Amazing!

                                                           Sorry!  I can't help it!

About the selections -  there is a sour cherry and pistachio, a lemon and vanilla, sour cherry and biscotti and other combinations. Patty and Dave join us with their treats and they have more combinations.  We can really understand why Napflio is famous for their gelato!  So creamy and delicious! I’m glad we didn’t miss it!

It’s about time for sunset and we go to the promenade along the water’s edge, just in time for the tail end of the show.  We pause to listen to a singer-guitarist who is busking by the shore and then we go looking for a place for people to swim in the morning. This entails swinging around a fence with a drop-off at the end. Glad Ive got a strong grip and am fairly sure-footed.  It a long way dow with sharp rocks!  This path doesn’t yield positive results but when we meet up with Kathy and Patty, they have found a short cut that will be useful in the morning. That accomplished, it’s time to go home and to bed!