999 Steps to the Top of Palamidi (Days 2 and 3 in Ναυπλιο)

Today, the majority of our day was occupied by climbing to the top of Palamidi Fortress and exploring the "ruins" on top of the hill. Legend says there are 999 steps, but when we counted on the way down, we only counted 906. Of course, once you get to the entrance of the Fortress, there's still plenty more inside. I won't bore you with the hundreds of pictures I took, but the view was absolutely incredible and I couldn't get over the scale of the fortress. If you're interested in seeing more photos, you can check out my facebook album -- email me if you don't have a facebook account and I'll send you the link.

Here's a view of the old acropolis (in Greek, this just means upper, or fortified, city -- it's not specific to the location in Athens where the Parthenon is located). We never made it up that hill to explore it, but it looked gorgeous. The old part of the town of Naflio is on the right side of the photo. The steps leading up to the fortress were very steep, with a lot of twists and turns -- I guess it makes sense from a defense perspective -- I had to take a couple breaks on my way up, and anyone in the fortress would have a great view of people coming up the steps for a long time before they were in a position to do any damage to the fortress.

Once we made it to the top, it all seemed worth it. I know I seem to say this in every post, but this country is absolutely stunning in its natural beauty. I came to Greece expecting the beauty of the islands, but I didn't really know all that much about the geography of the country. It turns out that 50% of the country is located above 500 m, and about 70% of the terrain is mountainous. The coastline is very rugged, as is the land itself -- mountains rise up almost right next to the sea in many places. Below: Amanda, Katie, and Alayna, in front of what I swear is the real background, no matter how fake it looks.

We spent several hours just wandering around and trying to imagine what the fortress must have looked like when it was in working order. It's very picturesque in its current state, but I can imagine it must have been quite imposing when it housed Venetian soldiers.


After exploring most of the fortress -- there definitely were a few parts I didn't make it to, we had a small lunch on top of the hill and marveled at the hill a little longer. Then, we began the walk back down to town. Kelly and I counted on the way down, getting 906 steps, and by the time we got to the bottom, our legs were visibly shaking, and we decided to stop at a cafe and have a coffee. I had discovered the amazing form of coffee the Greeks call a frappe the day before -- it's a cold coffee with milk-coffee froth on top and you can order it unsweetened, medium, or sweet, with or without additional milk. Yum! I took this picture to show just how steep the hill we climbed up was -- it also captures the little waterfall next to the cafe.


While some of the other girls napped or went shopping, Kelly and I went in search of the Komboloi Museum. Komboloi are Greek worry beads -- they resemble the pray beads that many religions use, but in Greece they are completely non-religious. Men of all ages have them and they fiddle with them whenever they're not really doing something -- night guards at hotels, old men having coffee, even a guy just standing waiting to cross the street. The museum was in a tiny house and the first floor was a workshop. They had some very entertaining literature about how they're on a quest to save the world from the scourge of Komboloi made from "dead" materials because those have none of the warmth or comfort that the traditional ones do. Apparently, they are traditionally made from something that was once alive -- amber, bone, ivory, etc. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but it was definitely an entertaining little museum, and we got in for free with our student IDs.

At the end of the day, we did a scavenger hunt through the town and were rewarded for our effort with a bar of milk chocolate -- not my favorite! We also found a nice little taverna and had an early dinner. I had a delicious dish called baked eggplant with a tomato sauce, and we got retsina and stuffed grape leaves (dolmades) for the table to share. After returning to the hotel and watching a little bit of American news -- I find I'm very out of touch with events in the world here -- Aubrey, Kelly and I returned to the cafe we'd been at the night before and then headed off to bed.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early and went in search of some of the other museums that were mentioned in my guidebook. We managed to locate the Folklife Museum, which was supposed to open at 9 AM. When we got there, the sign said they didn't open until 9:30, so we went in search of a pharmacy for one of the girls who had a cold coming on. In Greece, pharmacies aren't open 24/7 like they are in the US, nor do they stock a wide range of health and beauty products. On the weekends, one pharmacy in a neighborhood, or if it's a smaller town, the whole town, is "on call" each day and they're the only one open. To find that one particular pharmacy, you have to find any pharmacy and be able to decipher the Greek which tells you which day which pharmacy is open on, and where it's located. Luckily, one of the girls had a phrasebook, and I had a guide book with a map, so we were able to figure this out. It turned out to be on the other side of town, so we decided to go after the Folklife Museum. We headed back and the building was open. In the lobby was a small and somewhat cluttered exhibit with about 15 different pieces of clothing and some other accessories on display, as well as a selection of jewelry and jewelry boxes. We could see the main entrance to the museum, but it was blocked off, so we spent a while looking at the exhibit in the lobby and then wandered around the gift store. Finally, one of us asked when the main part of the museum would be opening, and we were informed that they were closed for the month of February. It was definitely one of those... "That would have been nice to know in advance..." moments.

A little disappointed at missing out on the opportunity to see traditional Greek costumes and how they've evolved over time, we headed off in search of the pharmacy, making our first journey into the new part of town. This area reminded me a great deal more of Athens and definitely made me appreciate the old section of town more -- there was a huge contrast between the two. After not too much walking, and surprisingly, no wrong turns, we found ourselves at the pharmacy, with a pharmacist who spoke English quite well. Katie explained her symptoms, the woman pulled a packet of lozenges from the shelves behind the counter, and said, "Take one in the morning and one at night," and we were on our way to the branch of the National Gallery that is housed in Nafplio. Again, we couldn't take pictures inside. The collection was fairly small, but they had some incredible pieces, all by Greek artists. One of my favorites was an image from a naval battle -- it was on a large canvas and the light in it was just incredible. Of course, I can't for the life of me remember who it was by or what it was called, so you'll just have to take my word for it. The whole collection is housed in a neoclassical villa. Satisfied with our morning adventures, we headed back to the hotel to wait for the bus home to Athens -- classes started the next morning, and I had to face my first 8 AM class since high school.