(written 15:41, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
The night turned out to be very cold, and neither of us slept all that well. In the morning, the reason became apparent - fresh snow not there the day before was now very visible on the mountains around us - not at all what we had expected to find in Greece at this time of year.
The morning was spent washing clothes in the campsite, making cups of tea for breakfast, and with me ending up with schooner of "greek" coffee from the café that doubled as the campsite office. This is pretty much the same as Turkish coffee (don't tell the Greeks though...) but you are supposed to have about a shot-glass' worth, not half a litre! Needless to say, the lack of sleep problem didn't bother me much that day.
After packing up, we headed the rest of the way down the road towards Mistrás. From the road I pointed up to a huge tall ridge with a castle on top and said something along the lines of "that's where we're going!", but Liz didn't believe me. Ninety minutes later, we were up the top, huffing and puffing and feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves for making it. This old Byzantine settlement was mostly ruins, but they contained monasteries, churches, a musem, and the towering high-up castle, all meant to keep attackers at bay. And those with dodgy knees, as we discovered on the way back down. Mine held out though, and by the time we were back at the "New Mistrás" at the bottom we felt we could go back to sleep without a hassle.
Instead, we rewarded ourselves with delicious lunch at a randomly-chosen tourist-looking restaurant, and sat in the sun enjoying the view up to our conquest on the hill.
The afternoon was spent driving north then east, passing over many more mountain ridges and finally diving down towards the coast at Mili, where we could see across the inlet to Náfplio, billed as "the most romantic city in Greece" and our target for the night.
There were plenty more god boxes everywhere on the roads as we wound around the coast to Náfplio, driving through the city and up the hill on the far side to Place Psaromahala. Here we entered Pension Bonne Nuit, were happy with the room and took it - the first one we looked at, as is usual unless it is horrible or the price outrageous.
It turns out one of the owners spent five years or so in Sydney, living in Erskineville, Tempe and a few other places. A nice old guy, we had a chat for a while before checking out our room. We had a great view over the harbour, most likely the best in the place as we had a terrace out the window to sit on that we could even access via our room's window!
We spent the afternoon and evening relaxing, enjoying cheese (not really, it was bad!), olives, wine and the view of the sunset over the water.
Not quite sure whether it deserved its billing, but Náfplio sure was a nice place of its own accord.
The stray cats got the nasty cheese that had been all I could muster from the hotel's shop downstairs.