Nafplio: still bloody brilliant.
May. 4th, 2012 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbThis morning I breakfasted on loukoumades, which are a kind of Greek treat that has much the same heart-attack-onna-stick composition as pierogies. Only loukoumades are fried sweet dough, rather than savoury, and mine where covered in chocolate sauce. (The traditional ones are covered in honey and cinnamon.) Dear friends, they were delicious, but they sit in the morning stomach like little sweet balls of lead.
As a consequence, I thought I'd better put off swimming for a little while. Healthy diversion presented itself in the form of the fortress of the Palamidi, with its many many steps for me to climb once more and work off some loukoumades.
It is fantastic up there. I've been up three times now. Each time I'm taken aback by how much fortress there is up there: bastions and bastions and bastions of early modern (mostly 18th century, I believe, and constructed within a relatively short span of time) fortifications, commanding the top of the rock in inimitable Venetians was here style, overlooking the sea, and the town, and the bastions of the Akronafplio. You can se the fortress of Argos from up there, too, and the ruins of Tiryns, and along the upper bastions the way is overgrown with scrub and rosemary and yellow carob and bright red poppies.
The quality of the light here is so different that at home: the sun is fiercer - brighter, sharper - and the whole attitude towards the world is different when one has that much sun and warmth. It is possible to live outside.
I walked back down the steps again soon enough, though. Still wasn't enough exercise, really, but there's a path that leads northeasterly along between the hill and the sea from Nafplio's tiny rocky beach. The sea is... well, it's the Mediterranean under a summer sky: blue like aquamarine and clear as crystal glass in the shallows. Across the bay a slight mist obscured the other mountains, but the Palamidi loomed on my left on the stroll out, occasional prickly pears and grasses clinging to high rocks. The cliff became less stark eventually, sliding gradually into less daunting hills covered in rosemary and sage and heather, chamomile and grasses, prickly scrub and stunted myrtle trees, the occasional rhododendron and other plants I can't identify without a handbook.
Fabulous scents. Birds making noises that seemed vaguely tuneful. Sunlight reflecting off the sea.
It was fantastic, and I was probably lured by "let's see what's around one more corner" into walking a bit further than I ought to have, but the last corner revealed the fact that less than an hour's walk from Nauplio is another larger beach, which I did not walk to, opting to turn around and walk back to the beach at the town while I still had both water and energy. I have been enpinkenified a bit, despite my best hopes - but since I took no precautions, this is only to be expected.
Swimming - brief, but glorious. The sea is cool by comparison with the air, but in comparison to back home (where the temperature right now is a balmy 9 degrees Celsius, or 49 of your strange American Fahrenheit), it's warm as a bath. I feel all kinds of gloaty about my short-but-fabulous holiday, really.
(Ooops. I'm pink. This may not be the best development ever.)
As a consequence, I thought I'd better put off swimming for a little while. Healthy diversion presented itself in the form of the fortress of the Palamidi, with its many many steps for me to climb once more and work off some loukoumades.
It is fantastic up there. I've been up three times now. Each time I'm taken aback by how much fortress there is up there: bastions and bastions and bastions of early modern (mostly 18th century, I believe, and constructed within a relatively short span of time) fortifications, commanding the top of the rock in inimitable Venetians was here style, overlooking the sea, and the town, and the bastions of the Akronafplio. You can se the fortress of Argos from up there, too, and the ruins of Tiryns, and along the upper bastions the way is overgrown with scrub and rosemary and yellow carob and bright red poppies.
The quality of the light here is so different that at home: the sun is fiercer - brighter, sharper - and the whole attitude towards the world is different when one has that much sun and warmth. It is possible to live outside.
I walked back down the steps again soon enough, though. Still wasn't enough exercise, really, but there's a path that leads northeasterly along between the hill and the sea from Nafplio's tiny rocky beach. The sea is... well, it's the Mediterranean under a summer sky: blue like aquamarine and clear as crystal glass in the shallows. Across the bay a slight mist obscured the other mountains, but the Palamidi loomed on my left on the stroll out, occasional prickly pears and grasses clinging to high rocks. The cliff became less stark eventually, sliding gradually into less daunting hills covered in rosemary and sage and heather, chamomile and grasses, prickly scrub and stunted myrtle trees, the occasional rhododendron and other plants I can't identify without a handbook.
Fabulous scents. Birds making noises that seemed vaguely tuneful. Sunlight reflecting off the sea.
It was fantastic, and I was probably lured by "let's see what's around one more corner" into walking a bit further than I ought to have, but the last corner revealed the fact that less than an hour's walk from Nauplio is another larger beach, which I did not walk to, opting to turn around and walk back to the beach at the town while I still had both water and energy. I have been enpinkenified a bit, despite my best hopes - but since I took no precautions, this is only to be expected.
Swimming - brief, but glorious. The sea is cool by comparison with the air, but in comparison to back home (where the temperature right now is a balmy 9 degrees Celsius, or 49 of your strange American Fahrenheit), it's warm as a bath. I feel all kinds of gloaty about my short-but-fabulous holiday, really.
(Ooops. I'm pink. This may not be the best development ever.)
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 04:56 pm (UTC)(I have pictures, but my camera battery is now dead, so retrieving them must wait.)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 07:23 pm (UTC)Although -- and I hate to say it -- it's currently 29 of your effete European Celsius degrees outside here. Please to remove the extra 20 Celsius at your earliest convenience.
Yrs truly, etc., etc.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-05 01:52 pm (UTC)Send the extra heat to Ireland and the UK. It's seven degrees in Dublin today.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-12 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-12 04:32 pm (UTC)As soon as I get batteries for my camera, I'll be uploading the pictures.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 09:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 10:02 am (UTC)And it's pretty. :P
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 10:23 am (UTC)We were hoping to go on some kind of mini-cruise of the Peloponnese organised by Saga (I just qualify for Saga, probably as my husband's 'companion' or 'carer', which is a bit of a laugh. The company's great, too!!) But they've cut back a lot of the Greek holidays, which is a real shame, because after a holiday in Crete I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. And that's one of the holidays that seems to have vanished.
The problem with Greece is that I lack confidence with the language, and with reading the Greek alphabet. But maybe I should be persevering a bit more, because a whistle-stop tour would never be as good as a detailed exploration.
Hmmm....
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 10:54 am (UTC)*helps like enthusiastic cats*