Greece week 2 Nafplio, Diros Caves

This week Brett had a giant outage at work. He worked nonstop day and night and we didn’t get to see him much during the week. The kids and I just did our normal activities during the week, going to the grocery store, laundry, playing at the playground and hiking up the hill behind our house. The kids like to have a normal routine during the week.
Our apartment owner here in Athens also owns a nice home with an apartment in Nafplio and offered to have us stay in their apartment for the weekend. We wanted to see the area and were excited to have a nice place to stay. We rented a car for the weekend and left Thursday evening, it was about a 2.5hr drive to Nafplio. The apartment was nice with 2 bedrooms and big family room and kitchen. We got some take-out Greek food for dinner and had a nice fire in the big fireplace. Takis (apartment owner) was very kind to us and told us all about the area so we planned our couple days there. Brett had to work late into the night finishing up work problems.
Friday morning we got up very early and drove down south to the Diros Caves. This is one of the most important natural sites in Greece.

The known part of the caves covers about 33,000 square meters of which only 5,000 square meters have been explored. We entered the cave by walking down a few stairs to an underground lake where there were boats waiting. The girls put on their life vests and we got into the boat with the guide. He used poles to journey through the caverns and tunnels, which were eerily lit and adorned with stalactites and stalagmites. We had to pass through some narrow areas just wide enough for the boat and we had to duck our head. The cave was about 70 degrees inside. After the boat ride we got to walk on a trail through the rest of the cave, we had a great time. The exit of the cave is on a trail overlooking the ocean-beautiful blue water!
After our cave adventures we stopped in Mystras, it is a panoramic site on a mountain. The city was founded by the Franks in 1249, they built a fortress and churches and over 2000 houses. It is now in ruins, but we were able to drive up the the top and get a magnificient view of the ruins and the surrounding mountains and valley.
We then continued our drive back to Nafplio for the night, it was a long day trip with about 6 hours of driving but a fun day! The caves were a hit!

Saturday morning we went to a big farmer’s market, it was fun to see all the fruits, vegetables, fish and goods for sale. They don’t really have anything like this at home. The towns in Italy and here in Greece have a market at least once a week.

This area is filled with olive groves and citrus groves. Takis has a little orchard of citrus trees and gave us a big bag of tangerines to take with us. Everyone loves them!
We then drove to Epidavros about 30 minutes away and saw the ancient theatre.

Many Greek tragedies were played at this theatre and in the summer they hold a big festival here where they continue to play the ancient drama. The theatre is known for it’s perfect acoustics. Brett and I sat up on the very top seats and listened to Alana sing her ABC’s on the center of the stage and we could hear it perfectly. We even heard a lady ripping a piece of paper from the top seats! The theatre is 374 feet across and surrounds a 66 ft diameter stage. We also walked around and saw a giant stadium where they held athletic events and saw many ruins and pillars around the area.
In the afternoon we went back to Nafplio to explore the town a little more. Nafplio is one of the prettiest towns I have seen and my favorite town in Greece. From 1829 to 1834 it was the first capital of Greece. There is an island fortress of Bourtzi that protected the entrance to the harbor from Pirates. The huge Venetian Palamidi fortress was built above the city in 1714 and is actually 3 fortresses walled together. There are 999 steps leading up to the fortress. We only counted about 880 steps up to the top gate that was locked. The other steps are inside the gate. Yes, we really hiked up all those steps with the kids. Alana beat us to the top, Addy only had to be carried for about 100 steps by me, and Brett carried Allden all the way to the top. It was worth the hike for the magnificient views and good exercise! After all that hiking we worked up an appetite and found a little restaurant for dinner. We enjoyed walking around the town, Nafplio is a neat place!
Sunday we got up very early to leave and head back to Athens for church, since there was no church in or near Nafplio. We had planned to see a few more sites in the area but we can never see it all, it was raining that morning anyways. We enjoyed the church meetings and all the nice friendly people. After the meetings they had a potluck which they invited us to and we got to visit more with people and the missionary’s. After church we walked around Plaka the historic heart of Athens. We also found the National Gardens to walk around, it’s a huge park and they even had a small zoo with goats and a few animals. We also saw Hadrian’s arch, which was built in AD 131 and marked the boundary between the ancient city and the new Athens of Hadrian. We also saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Only 15 of the original 104 columns remain, but enough to give a sense of the once enormous size of this temple approximately 315 ft long and 130ft wide. There is so much history in this city!
We had another wonderful weekend, the best part is just spending quality time together as a family, something we didn’t do as often while at home. We have had many good experiences and created many memories!