General View

View from the Sea

Palamidi Fortress

Walk in Town

Railway Station

Constutution Square

Panoramic View from Palamidi

Nafplion Streets

Nafplion Tavernas

Nocturn Nafplion

Carvings of a Winged Lyon

Venetian Gate

For more photos 
please visit
Nafplion's 
Photo Galerry

For several years after The Greek War of Independence this was Greece`s first capital. Another legacy of those years is the impressive number of handsome neoclassical buildings and the generous number of statues of revolutionary heroes in Nafplio`s squares and parks. Also has two hiltop Venetian fortresses, a miniature castle on an island in the harbour, shady parks, and interesting assortment of small museums, and better than average hotels, restaurants and shops. Nafplio is far and away the most charming town in the Peloponnese.

A LOOK AT THE PAST:

Nafplio,s two massive fortifications, the Acronafplia and the Palamidi dominate the skyline. As you'll realise when you visit these fortresses, whoever held the heights here could keep a close wacth on both the gulf and the plain of Argos. The Greeks began to fortify Akronafplia and Palamidi, and the Romans, Bizantines, Venetians, Franks, and Turks added a wall here and a turret there, with the result you see today.
The venetians spent three years building the Palamidi, only to be conquered the next year by the Turks in 1715.
You will enter the fortress the way the Turkish attackers did, through the main gate to the east or to climb the 800-plus steps. Once and wander through the considerable remains of the five defense fortresses that failed to stop the Turkish attack.
The most important fortification on Akronafplia were built during the first (1388-1540) and second (1686-1715) Venetian ocupation. You are looking at here is a Frankish castle and Venetian defense tower to the east and a byzantine castle to west. Nafplion retained its strategic importance well into this century: During World War II, the German ocupying forces had gun emplacements here. The Venetians built the Bourtzi fortress to guard the entrance to the harbour in the 15-th century. Since then it's had a checkered career, serving as a home for retired executioners in the 19-th century and briefly as a small hotel in this century.

WHAT TO SEE & DO:

The Folk Art Museum
Housed in a elegant 18-th century house, has a superb shop, and one of the finest colection of costumes in Greece.

The Archaeological Museum
Housed in a handsome 18-th century Venetian arsenal, include pottery, jewelry, and some quite horrific Mycenaean terra-cotta idols and bronze suit of armor.

The Military Museum
Old photographs, old prints, and muskets, which cover Greek wars from The War of Independence to World War II.

The Museum of Childhood
An offshoot of the Folk Art Museum, has a eclectic colection of dolls, baby clothes, and toys.

Carvings of the winged lion
The simbol of Saint Mark, the protector of Venice.

Ortodox Church of St. Spiridon
One of its walls was mark left by one of the buletts that killed the first governor of modern Greece.

Chatolic Church of the Metamorphosis
A symbol for Nafplio's vexed history. Built by the Venetians, converted into a mosque by the Turks and reconsacreted after of War of Independence.

ALTERNATIVE DESTINATION:

Tiryns
Stands on a rocky outcropping 87 feet / 330 yards, and the  entire Mycenaen citadel is girdled by the massive walls. Later Greeks throught that only the giants known al Cyclopes could have positioned the wall's 14-ton red limestone blocks, and arhaeologists still call these walls"cyclopean". Acording to Greek legend, the great hero Heracles (Hercule) was born here after Zeus deceived and impregnated Alkemene. Tyrins have increased its fortification around 1.400 B.C. and been destroyed around 1.200 B.C.
Even today, Tyrins only a mile from the sea: and in antiquity, before the plain silted up, it would have been virtually on the seashore. Tyrins is a good deal better preserved than Mycenae and you'll find in a impresive series of storage galleries and chambers on the east side, the palace, the great wall and the large subterane cisterns. About Ttiryns finally, with some scholars suggesting civil wars, other natural disaster, still other invasion by the mysterious "People of the Sea" sometimes credited with invading Greece about this time.
 

Tyrins - General View

Tyrins - Cyclopic Wall

GETTING THERE:

12 km. from Tolo, 145 km from Athena
Altitude 5-85m; Population 10.000
By Bus
There are at least a dozen busses a day to Nafplion from the Stathmos Leoforia Peloponisou in Athens.
By Train
There are several trains a day from Athens to Corinth and Argos, where you can catch a bus on to Nafplion.
By Boat
There is Flying Dolphin hydrofoil service from Marina Zea, Piraeus to Nafplion.
By Car
From Athens - Corinth - Nemea - Mycenae - Argos - Nafplio.