November 3  -  Nafplio, Greece

This morning we anchored off the city of Nafplio, capital of the region Argolis on the Peloponnesian peninsula. I stopped here not quite two years ago on this same ship and wrote about some of the history of the place, so I’ll only repeat a couple of things.  I always thought the Acropolis was the Acropolis, the one in Athens.  Acropolis is a generic word in Greek meaning high point which can be fortified, so there are many of them in Greece.  On my tour today we passed at least two although they were not nearly as spectacular as the one in Athens.  

This time around I decided to take a tour to a vineyard here in the Argolis region. We took about a 35-minute bus ride through the plain of Argolis.   Along the way we passed through fields of orange and olive groves. We had an excellent guide named Helen who explained to us that the climate is such here that they actually get two crops of oranges every year and so one can see trees that have both ripe fruit and blossoms on them.  The plain is ringed by low mountains on whose sides vineyards are planted.

We arrived at the Skouras Vineyard and Winery for our tour, tasting and lunch.  During our visit we met Mr. Skouras who began the vineyard in 1986 after studying oenology in France and Italy. His vineyard now produces around 880,000 bottles of wine each year of which 50% is exported and 50% stays in Greece.  We walked through the cellars where we saw the rows of oak casks (French oak which is it what most vineyards seem to use) and then saw the bottling operation.  After we went up to a tasting and dining hall where we tasted two white wines and two reds, followed by a nice lunch.  I’m not one of these people with a discerning palate; I just know if something tastes good, bad or so-so to me. The wines I tasted were somewhere between so-so and good I thought.  I’ve never heard that Greece is renowned for its wine and that’s about how I thought of what I tasted.  It was an enjoyable experience though.

Entrance to the Skouras Winery

Greeks love myths and legends so of course Helen told us about the legend of Amymone and Poseidon and the plain of Argolis.  (There are apparently different versions of this story but this is the one we heard.)  Amymone was one of 50 daughters of King Danaus, an Egyptian king who fled to what is now Argolis with his daughters.  The area was arid and nothing would grow so Danaus sent Amymone out to find water.  She searched for it but each time she would find a spring it would dry up before she could fill her water jug or go back to tell her father she’d found one.  On her third try she encountered a very handsome young man who struck a stone with the trident he was carrying and water came gushing out ending the drought.  The young man was actually the god Poseidon and he fell in love with the maiden, married her and they had eight sons.  That was Helen’s version of the myth.  I’ve read others and I don’t know which is correct, but then it is just a myth.  I don’t think there is a place you can go to in this country that doesn’t have some kind of legend associated with it and I find them all fascinating.

On our way back to Nafplio Helen told us a little about the city and the area around it.  The last time I came here I went to the ruins of Mycenae. From about 1600 BC to 1100 BC Mycenae was the dominant city in Greece and in fact the time period is known as the Mycenean Age.  It fell into decline  around 1100 BC for a number of reasons including earthquakes, internal strife and wars.  The city of Nafplio did become a major port in the Peloponnese and it was captured by every civilization that came along.  The city has the remains of three fortresses built to protect it (not too successfully).  The most intact one was built by the Venetians in the 15th century.  Under the Venetians it became an important trading port.  In the 1820’s Greece fought for its independence from the Ottoman Empire.  (They celebrate their Independence Day on March 25th which was the beginning of their war for independence in 1821 much like our 4th of July).  After that was achieved with the help of the British, Nafplion became the capital of the First Hellenic Republic and the Kingdom of Greece from 1827 until 1834.  Now it’s a little more sleepy but still quite charming.

That's one of the fortresses up on top of the hill

and here's another

A street in Nafplio

I’m always amazed when I come to this country at the history here.  Wherever you look there are ruins and reminders of civilizations past.  We in the USA are not even toddlers as compared to the civilizations that have risen and fallen here.  It can also be a cautionary tale about how once great societies went into decline and ruin, often from internal strife.  We should bear that in mind as we go along.