Post 6 of 7
Loved our visit to Nafplio’s (or, as we knew it, Nauplion’s) Palamidi fortress 50 years ago, back in 1970. At the time, Elaine, Rex and I sat for ages in an underground cistern, watching reflected sunlight from a high window scattering across the walls.
A natural form of the light shows in fashion at the time at places like the Middle Earth club in Covent Garden, which we haunted to see bands like The Byrds, Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, Pink Floyd and Marc Bolan’s Tyranosaurus Rex. Those were the days, my friend.
And here are some images from our return visit, when the town was gradually closing in on itself, because of COVID-19.
Altogether, we were four nights at the Amalia Hotel outside Nafplio, a great base for exploring the city and region. But very few other people were staying – and on the day we left to fly back early to the UK, they closed the hotel entirely.
Lovely to hear frogs in the landscape around the hotel – and to see bats flitting across the evening sky.
One less romantic memory surfaced, however, when George Terezakis, our Greek guide, pointed out the local open prison as we drove by. Near the Mycenian ruin of Tiryns.
That did it. We recalled pulling our Landrover off the road nearby back in 1970. Elaine and I were sleeping in the back of the vehicle, while the others slept around about in tents.
In the morning Elaine woke up from dream that someone was sawing off her feet, which protruded onto the Landrover’s tailgate. Lifting the tarpaulin backflap, she saw a man standing outside, with an axe.
We began talking to him, in French, I think. Turned out he was from the nearby open prison. We asked why he had been imprisoned. He said he had killed his wife’s lover. With an axe. Otherwise, a perfectly charming man.
