It's All Greek to Us

The period between our return from Lyon on August 23 and the beginning of our trip to Greece on September 4 was a rather painful one for me, which in turn, created some anxieties about the upcoming travel. I had slipped on one of our interior stairways on August 18 and landed hard on my left heel. My ankle was a bit painful when we were in Lyon, but didn't seem too bad, so I probably walked more on it than I should have during that trip. After our return, I started having pain in my left heel during standing and walking. It didn't seem to be getting any better over the weekend despite extensive rest, ice, elevation, and painkillers, so I made my first foray into the French medical system on Monday, August 26. I managed to find the equivalent of an urgent care doctor in Auxonne, who agreed to give me a quick examination despite the fact that I didn't have an appointment. Between my minimal French and Google Translate, she told me that it was probably just a bruise and not a break, but to be on the safe side she gave me a prescription to get an x-ray of the left heel/ankle and an ultrasound of the Achilles tendon. Again, fortunately, Auxonne has an imaging clinic, and they were able to fit me in the following morning. The doctor there spoke English and confirmed that there was no break or torn ligament. The cost for the two visits was about the equivalent of $130 total--I can't imagine anywhere in the U.S. where an uninsured patient could have obtained the services I did for a price that low.

I was happy not to have broken or cracked anything, but the continuing pain had me concerned about the impact on our trip to Greece. Our trips usually involve lots of walking, and I didn't know what kind of modifications would have to be made to our trip if my foot didn't improve. I rested it a lot, but biking didn't seem to bother it, so we made a couple of "escapes" from CARIB with rides to neighboring villages.

The Chateau d'Athée, constructed in the 15th C. around a
medieval tower. It currently is the mayor's office for the village.
Claim to fame: in June 1674, King Louis XIV, on his way to
besiege the town of Dole, his wife Queen Marie-Therese, and
their son (the heir to the throne), spent the night at the castle rather than
 risk exposure to the plague that was ravaging Auxonne at the time.

By the time of our departure on September 4, the foot was feeling much better, although still not 100%. The first two days were travel days, so aside from the walking required at the airports I was able to take it fairly easy. That seemed to do the trick, because by the evening of the 5th the soreness in the foot was gone. I still used an elasticized ankle support, but we walked several miles on most days, and I never had a recurrence of the pain. Hallelujah! Given what we encountered in Greece, it would have been a real challenge to travel with a bad foot.

If we had to come up with an acronym to describe our time in Greece, it might have been something like "B.O.A.T.S.: Break Out Another Thousand Steps." We're talking about the vertical ones--as in stairways--not just the horizontal ones. It's probably not surprising that anyone in Greece is going to spend a lot of time going up or down given that the country is 80% mountainous. The ancients loved the high hills for the security they provided, and because much of our sightseeing would be to old archeological sites, it was inevitable that we would have to deal with lots of stairs and slopes.

We claimed our rental car at the Athens airport, and after 2 hours on excellent roads we were at our first stop, the city of Nafplio on the Greek Peloponnese. Although settled very early, most of the architecture and archeological sites stem from the occupations by the Franks, Venetians, and Turks. Nafplio became the first capital of Greece when it won its independence in 1823 and held that role until 1834. It is considered one of the most romantic towns in Greece and turned out to be a great base for our explorations over the next several days.

We absolutely loved staying at the 7-room Amfitriti Palazzo
 Hotel. We had to park the car next to the old castle on the
 hill above the hotel, but it was worth every step to get to
and from the hotel.
 

Our breakfast view from the patio of the hotel included
the oldest castle in Nafplio, the Acronafplia Castle. The
breakfast buffet was awesome and the staff wonderful.

Upper: when you build against a hill, you sometimes have to work the
boulders into your decorating scheme.
Lower: And when you build a on a hill, getting from breakfast to your
ground floor room involves two flights of stairs. 

Upper: breakfast view over the Argolikos Gulf.
Lower: breakfast view inland.

Having had enough of driving and moving, we spent our first full day in Nafplio getting acquainted with the town, and staying out of the car except for a quick trip to the grocery store. We had another full "Nafplio Day" on Sunday, September 8, and then tried not to overextend ourselves when we did our day tripping outside of Nafplio. 

First stop in Nafplio: explore the ruins of Acronafplia
 Castle.The winged lion above the portal is a remnant of 
the Venetian additions to the fortress. The lion is
the traditional emblem of St. Mark, the patron
saint of Venice.

The east side had great views down to Arvanitia Beach; the
water was crystal clear. The 17th C Palamidi Fortress is on
the hilltop above the town and the beach.

From another angle we could see the small Venetian fortress of Bourtzi
 in the harbor of Nafplio. In the 1860's, it housed the executioners of
 prisoners in the Palamidi fortress. The object circled in blue is
the Larissa Castle of Argos, which we would visit later in the trip.

Stairs or slopes, the only way to change levels
in Nafplio.

Nafplio was a tourist town, but when we were there at least, it didn't seem 
overwhelmed with people. It was just nice walking the streets. Probably because
it was a tourist town, nearly every Greek person we encountered spoke English.

Upper: Assassination Vacation--the Church of Saint Spyridon, where
in 1831 the first Governor of Modern Greece, Ioannis Kapodistrias,
was assassinated as he was about to enter the church.
Lower: the Greek Orthodox churches we entered were incredibly
ornate and all had chandeliers, continuing a tradition begun during
the Byzantine period.

Our biggest physical challenge came on Sunday, September 8. We were determined to make the climb to Palamidi Fortress at the top of its 216-meter-high hill. It was built by the Venetians in 1711-1714 during their second occupation of Nafplio. They didn't hold it long--the Turks managed to capture it in 1715 and hung onto it until they were chased out by the Greeks in 1822. Those in the field of tourism marketing will say that there are 999 steps to climb to reach the castle. Wikipedia says that there are 913 steps in the winding stairway up the side of the hill to reach the fortress, but additional steps inside the fortress to reach the top level push that to over 1000. My legs and I believe Wikipedia.

Palamidi Fortress as seen from Acronafplia Castle. The stairway "switchbacks" go
down the hill just below the left side of the fortress wall (hard to see).

Lon is just about to go out of sight at the top end of the visible staircase. We did the climb
fairly early in the morning when the stairway was in shade. It was still hot at the top, though.

The climb turned out not to be too bad--as long as one
took the occasional break.

Not "OSHA approved". The U.S. lawyers
would probably have a field day with some of 
the safety aspects of the site (or lack thereof).

It was a big fortress, and we explored nearly every corner.

Can't come to Greece without noticing that there are lots of
stray cats. We saw them everywhere we went. Mostly they
looked in good shape and in many places it was apparent that
people had established feeding stations for them.

Sidagmatos Square, the main square of Nafplio.

On the downtown side, this is the start of the Arvanitia walk around the peninsula upon
which the Acronafplia Castle sits. It ends at the Arvanitia Beach. Beautiful at dusk!

We stayed a total of 6 nights in Nafplio and we'd go back in a heartbeat. When we had to decide on the "in the vicinity of" places to explore we were absolutely spoiled for choice.