Nafplio

Nafplio is the city most visitors wish they had chosen to live in. It is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes and deep enough to lose a week in. The old town is a tangle of narrow lanes between neoclassical houses painted in ochre, terracotta, and apricot, with bougainvillea spilling over balconies and cats asleep on the marble steps. Above it all hangs the enormous bulk of the Palamidi fortress, its nine bastions crowning a 200-metre rock, and below it the sea folds around the islet of Bourtzi, a fortified castle stranded on its own island in the middle of the harbour. The 999 steps of Palamidi are cut into the rock in a zigzag, and every switchback delivers a new view of the bay, the town, and the Argolic Gulf; from the top, Nafplio looks like a model town, neat and painted, with the mountains of the Peloponnese behind it. The city was the first capital of the modern Greek state (1829–1834), the place where the new country found its feet, and it wears that history lightly — there are bullet marks in the walls, a museum in the old Venetian barracks, and everywhere the comfortable certainty of a place that has always been beautiful.

Nafplio's history is written in layers of stone. The site has been inhabited since antiquity — the ancient city of Nauplia was a harbour town of the Argolid, mentioned by Homer, and its acropolis was the Akronafplia, the rock above the modern town. The first of the great fortifications came in the Byzantine era, but it was the Franks and then the Venetians who transformed Nafplio into a major fortress-port. The Venetians built the Akronafplia walls, added the Bourtzi castle, begun in 1471, on the islet in the harbour, and completed the Palamidi fortress between 1711 and 1714 — the vast bastioned citadel named after Palamedes, the mythical hero said to have invented the alphabet, dice, and lighthouses. The Ottomans held the town from 1715 until 1822, when it was captured during the Greek War of Independence after a long siege. In 1829, Nafplio became the first capital of the independent Greek state; it was here that the first Greek parliament met, the first Greek bank opened, and the assassinated governor Ioannis Kapodistrias was shot on the steps of the church of St. Spyridon in 1831. When the capital moved to Athens in 1834, Nafplio settled into a quieter existence, but its role as the birthplace of the modern state — and its spectacular architecture — have never been forgotten.

The name is recorded by Stephanus of Byzantium in the sixth century AD. His Ethnica is not a book of stories but a dictionary of Greek place-names, and for this one it says: "The name comes from sailing up to it with ships". (Ethnica, s.v. Ναυπλία).

That is the whole of what an ancient source has to say about how the place got its name. It is a shorter answer than the guidebooks give, and it is the only one with a source behind it.

Nafplio is a seaside town, and the swimming is right at your feet. Arvanitia, a small cove directly beneath the Akronafplia rock, is a five-minute walk from the centre and a favourite of locals and travellers alike — deep green water, a pebbled shore, and the fortress looming overhead. Karathona, a long sandy beach three kilometres south of town, is the proper beach day: soft sand, tamarisk trees, a couple of tavernas, and shallow water that stays warm into October. For something more dramatic, the coves of the Argolic coast north of town — at Tolo and Drepano — offer organised beaches with sunbeds and water sports. And the whole coastline here is gentle, shelving, and safe, which makes Nafplio an easy base for families.

Nafplio's kitchens draw on the whole of the Peloponnese. The classic Argolic dishes are simple and superb: olive-oil-drenched salads with the local feta, grilled octopus and calamari, and the famous 'tsiirda' (a light, lemony fish soup). The town is celebrated for its kourabiedes and pasteli, and the local speciality is the roaster-fresh coffee with a spoon sweet — try the bergamot or the quince. The waterfront tavernas of the old town serve the day's catch, while the small streets behind hide family tavernas serving slow-cooked lamb, kleftiko, and the Peloponnesian pastitsio. For a proper evening, order a plate of grilled sardines, a Greek salad, and a carafe of the local house wine, and let the harbour lights do the rest.

Spring (April to June) and autumn (September to October) are the finest seasons: the light is clear, the almond and orange trees are in flower in spring, and the town is at its most relaxed. Summer (July to August) is warm and busy — the harbourfront restaurants fill up, and the evenings are long and golden; it is still one of the most pleasant coastal towns in Greece to spend a hot evening. Winter is quiet and atmospheric, with some restaurants closing and the fortresses at their most dramatic above a grey sea.

Most travellers arrive by road: Athens airport is the main gateway, roughly 140 km and about an hour and a half down the A8, which ends at Corinth rather than continuing into the Argolid. KTEL Argolida runs frequent buses between Athens and Nafplio, and the town also has seasonal fast-ferry links to Athens and hydrofoil services to the Argo-Saronic islands and the Mani. There is no commercial airport and no passenger rail - the metre-gauge line to Nafplio was suspended in 2011 - so the nearest working station is Corinth on the Piraeus-Kiato suburban line.

The 999 steps to Palamidi are best climbed early, before the heat and the crowds; if the climb daunts you, drive up the western road instead and walk the bastions. Buy a combined ticket for Palamidi and Akronafplia — it covers both fortresses. The old town is pedestrian; park outside the walls and walk in. Karathona is the best swimming beach, a short drive or a pleasant walk south. For the sunset, find a table on the waterfront with the Bourtzi in front of you — the light on the islet is spectacular. And take a moment at the church of St. Spyridon, where the first governor of Greece was assassinated — history here is not in a museum, it is on the streets.