Where do I begin to extol the virtures of lovely Nafplio. This was such a beautiful place. I had great gelato here. The owner of the gelato shop was a nice Italian lady, of course. The fruti de bossco was almost as good in Nafplio as it was in Florence last year. I can never get enough Gelato. I went back to that shop twice in one day. Bad for the waistline, good for the soul!
We had two exceptional day trips from Nafplio. The first day was to Ancient Mycenae and the second day to Epidravos.
I could have stayed in Nafplio for a month or maybe a year! It was so pretty, peaceful and engaging. I had a great afternoon at the beach before this picture was taken. My morning was spent in Mycenae checking out the famous Lions Gate and the rest of the day on the beach. What a great way to spend your time in Greece.
We stayed at a very nice hotel in Nafplio. It is called the Pension Marianna. The three brothers that run this deserve five stars for service. They were there to take care of whatever you needed quickly and with a smile. Becky and I had a great view out of our window. The room was nice and big and the bathroom had really fluffy towels. I would stay here again.
On our first night in Nafplio, David took us on a short walking tour and we ended up in Plateia Syntagmaotos. (Constitution Square). This plateia was paved with marble. I had never seen that before. It was a nice place for families to gather and have a bite to eat while the children play.
The Bourtzi island fortress was built during the second Venetian occupation. I read it was the local executioners home until the 1930's. This fortress could stop entrance to the Bay with a chain extending from the fortress to the town of Nafplio.
The above pictures are some of the scenery I enjoyed while at the beach in Nafplio. Greek men liked wearing speedos and greek children swim in their undies. It was cute, the children, not the men in speedos! I live in Utah, not much speedo action on the homefront. My tour members Sam and Susan seemed to enjoy talking to this guy. There was alot of laughing going on. The greek guys on the beach in Nafplio were persistent. I found it was easy to get rid of unwanted attention by telling them I was married with three kids!
Our group dinner in Nafplio was tasty and entertaining. We had local folk musicians and dancers. Most of the tour members were up and dancing at one point. It was great fun.
The dancers were fun to watch. The men seemed to have more energetic moments. The women were graceful and elegant. The older man of the two male dancers did a back flip! We were impressed.
We had a wine tasting on our first night in Nafplio. The man who owned the wine store gave us alot of information on greek vineyards. Greek wine was more varied than I thought it was. I thought the whites were better than the reds in Greece. I tried the ouzo. I thought it should be called rocket fuel. The olives, bread and cheese we had at the wine tasting were very good. The members of the tour group that atteneded had a fun time.
