Fort Palamidi

I am sitting in a beautiful courtyard looking up at the fort we visited this morning. We climbed 999 steps to get there. And these aren't your mamby-pamby steps. These are steps along the face of a steep rock outcropping. Those of you who know me well know that I am afraid of heights. Like I get queezy standing on a chair. So 999 steps up the face of a rock is living on the edge for me.

Fort Palamidi was built in the 1700s by the Venetians, and has changed hands several times before being taken back by the Greeks as the first move in their independence in 1822. It has amazing views in every direction. The town, the harbor, the Aegean sea, the rolling hills. It is enormous, and made up of many interior bastions -- making it strategically very difficult to conquer.

It's hard for me to understand how this would even be necessary. I walked those stairs. I don't know how an army even gets there for an attack. Once there it would take them quite some time to catch their breath. In the meantime, boling oil and archers should be able to take care of the problem.

There's a dungeon prison up there too. You have to climb all that way to get put in prison? The dungeon is seriously creepy. I walked into it and got the willies thinking of the door accidentally closing. You definitely don't want to end up in that jail.

As I explored the ramparts, I heard a couple speaking Spanish. I started talking with them, and as we described the things we had seen, they told me to go to the area over by the parking lot. I said, and I quote, "Parking lot?" They said, "Yes, the parking lot."  And I said, "Wait. Did you say parking lot?" And we continued on this way for some time. Finally they told me they had ridden their scooters to the top and asked me how I got there. I told them we had climbed the stairs. They said "What stairs?" Etc. Etc. When they understood that we had climbed all the way up from town they couldn't believe it. It was mutual disbelief.

Jan stayed quiet through all of this (except for his heaving breath on the stairs), but when we were up looking out off one of the ramparts it all caught up with him. I got stung by a bee, and jumped/yelped. He was sure I was going to trip and go flying off the cliff. he insisted I step "away from the wall!"

As we descended back to town we heard a dog barking. Soon we saw a big hairy samoyed. Behind it trailed an out-of-breath woman. She sat down as the dog played with us on one of the switchbacks. When she caught her breath she told us that they made that trip every day. The dog bounding ahead of her and barking at her to hurry up and follow.

At the foot of the climb we found a sweet little cafe with a water fall and shady trees. (That climb got hot!) We tried the local favorite -- frappe made out of nescafe over ice. It was perfect!

We can't quite get on the local eating schedule. They eat lunch around 3pm and then dinner around 10.  My stomach doesn't work on that timeline. We tried to hold out today and then had lunch too late -- at 4pm. Who knows what we'll do for dinner. But it's Saturday night and we want to catch some of the local scene. (Nafplion is a big weekend getaway for Athenians -- the cafes and sidewalks are full, even though it is early season.)

Stay tuned to see if we can shed our Midwestern sophistication and stay awake past 10pm.

Here are more pictures:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=78066&id=546859239&saved#/album.php?aid=78066&id=546859239&ref=nf