Today our friend Stephie wasn’t around in the morning to advise about things to do today so we trusted Rick Steves and headed north to Nafplion and Mycenae after breakfast.
Rick Steves describes Nafplion as a “charming port town,” “small, cozy, and strollable,” and places it on his must-see list. Nafplion changed hands between the Venetians and the Ottomans repeatedly from the 14th through the 19th century, so the city and its architecture have been influenced by a number of different cultures. It became the capital of Greece for thirteen years after Greece received its independence from the Ottoman Empire after the Revolution of 1821.
It took us about two hours to get there. It was overcast and rained a little on and off during our ride. We parked and, of course, the first order of business was coffee. Once Rick had his caffeine fix we set off following Rick Steves’ walk through town which took us by all the main sites. Luckily we had our raincoats because we had some rain during our walk. The harbor was protected by three castles which we saw in the distance but didn’t visit. We definitely could see the mix of Greek, Venetian, and Turkish architecture.
At the end of tour we found a nice restaurant to have lunch. Overall Nafplion was nice, but we wouldn’t have put it on the must-see list.
After lunch, we headed to Mycenae which is a fortress city that was the hub of a mighty civilization that dominated the Greek world between 1600 and 1200 BC. Not much is known about Mycenaeans including who they were, where they came from, or what happened to them. Rick had had enough of ruins so I went in by myself. Again I followed Rick Steves walking tour. It was mostly just rock ruins but it was interesting to think about the people living there 3,500 years ago.
Then we drove back to our mountain home. We didn’t get back to our hotel until about 7. Here is a map of our travels today.
We spent the evening rearranging our stuff so that we could drop off a suitcase at the marina rather than drag it into Athens.