NAFPLIA, GREECE

by Dan Winters (posted by his more techy savvy daughter)
"Alcohol—because no good story started with someone eating a salad." -- T-shirt slogan

We spent three great days in Nafplia. It is essentially a Greek Carmel—scenic, classy, serene, except not surrounded by overpriced golf courses and cigar smoking rich guys, instead surrounded by ancient, crumbling fortresses and cigarette smoking 45 year old retired Greeks. Nafplia sits on the Gulf of Argolic in north eastern Peloponnedia, a region famous for the old school Greek bad boys, Sparta. Sparta, glorified in the movie The 300, was  a screw-loose  militaristic city state whose philosophy currently appeals to equally screw-loose football coaches, motorcycle gangs and the NRA. Sparta sat on top of the tyranny charts from 446 to 403 BC.  It's downfall was failing to beat the point spread against amby-pamby Thebes in 402 BC, then losing to Cal.

Our hotel, the Nafplia Palace, was über stylish. It had high tech lighting, music, temperature and lighting controls, none of which we ever figured out how to use. We operated mostly from the light of our cell phones. Carol was enchanted by the expansive jacuzzi bath with the inset TV. She watched the whole Pope at White House/Congress thing looking though bubbles. The hotel is on a cliff side inside the

hilltop fortress Akronafpia (yes, there is an STD by the same name. Or so I’ve heard.) An elevator is dug down though the cliff four stories as an access to the gulf side town. This necessitated a futuristic tunnel drilled back into the cliff to connect with the elevator. It is a hundred yards long and thirty yards wide. Stylistically, it is somewhere between Ming the Merciless's palace in the Flash Gordon series and Dr. Evil's headquarters in the Austin Powers' movie Gold Member. We had a chill time at the Palace, but it was off season already and the place was empty. We ate in the spacious

dining room overlooking the gulf. A pianist/singer entertained. There were two other tables of diners. That was it. The next night the door was chained. We did, however, have an impressive gourmet meal, especially considering there was no food, at least for me. Carol was enraptured, she was in her "When in Doubt go Pork" phase. She had pork. We shared a pear/walnut salad with the kind of lettuce that looks like weeds and a Lego-tiny block of feta. But salad doesn't count. I ordered lamb chops. They looked extraordinary but you had to be an orthopedic surgeon with a bone saw to find any meat. These chops were gnarly. They looked like the current X-ray of my football knee that had all the cartilage removed 52 years ago. Also on the plate was what appeared to be a tasty pile of potatos. On close examintation, the potatoes were speared with toothpicks, forming potato tripods. Nice but, detoothpicked, there was barely a Gulag ration. Actually, the dinner was memorable. The pianist was monumental. He crushed a long Gershwin melody ending with American in Paris and Porgy and Bess. We hardly thought about how hungry we were.

According to travel guru Rick Steves, Nafplia not only has picturesque charm and history, but a reputation as a millennial party destination. Steves describes the port side promenade Bouboulinas "as a catwalk beset by hormone-oozing young Greek males"  and females wearing "the most provocative outside apparel." We did not see that at all, mostly there was just the usual: Euros with fannypacks and tevas, eating platers of meat. I think Rick may have some issues.

We ambled along the pretty shade tree and bougainvillea-lined walk streets and nursed iced caffe latte in the harbor side cafes. We were charmed by the back lanes that climbed to the cliffs—brightly painted homes, curved railed pensions, out of the way tavernas. We climbed the 999 steps (that is what is advertised, we lost count at 72) to a second even larger fortress Palamidi (also named after an STD, not sure what the city founding fathers were thinking). We drove though the rocky countryside along endless olive, lime and orange orchards. This was a damn cool place, put it on your Why Not Bucket List. That is a place that you can validly die without doing but, "Why Not?"