April 23-24 Nafplio

We left Monemvasia on the coast to cut thru the mountains to another coast further east. A meandering 3.5 hour drive stopping at beautiful lookouts, tiny churches & one monastery built into the rocky mountainside--where the lonely monk invited us to a cup of Greek coffee & lots of conversation.  We felt inspired to buy (more) soap made by the nuns & a bottle of white wine made by the monks. Reached Nafplio (which looked like any mid-size city on the way in) in the late afternoon & couldn't find our way to our motel--the old town is tricky & often without strret numbers. We finally called the hotel & Panos, one of 3 brothers, said Wait there & I'll come to show you the way on my motorcycle! The old city turned out to be

 Drive thru mountains

 Another beautiful little bay

Walkway to our hotel

Mycaenae doorway ( not the 120 ton lintel)

The Nafplio bay

wonderful.  Friday we visited Mycaenae, another ruin of a fortified city from 1400 BC. It's located strategically on a beautiful hill. One of the lintels weighs 120 tons-- 4 times the weight of one stone in the Egyptian pyramids! Nafplio is a much bigger town than we'd been in except for Athens. The old town area has lots of  very old Venetian & Turkish architecture & lots of twisty narrow streets. Saturday we cross the Isthmus of Corinth, drive to the Athens airport & fly to Crete. More to follow . . .