No worries in Nafpoli

Sunday 21 July 2013

We are spending a second night in Nafpoli, a lovely lively harbour which was briefly the capital of modern Greece. It boasts three forts, one out on a little island in the bay, and two high up overlooking the town. We walked around the one but to reach the other meant a walk up and down 999 steps. As the temperature has been hitting 38 degrees we decided to give that a miss.

The town has dozens of worry bead shops and even a museum dedicated to the ‘Komboloi’ but they seem to be a pretty chilled out bunch here. We have parked up in the main harbour car park for  2 nights along with a few other campers without any problem, unlike in Galatas harbour car park the other night where we received a polite – ‘Don’t park here’ notice on our windscreen the following morning!

Don't worry about a thing.....cos every little thing is going to be alright

We took a day trip today to Ancient Corinth setting off early to avoid the heat and the crowds. It’s an impressive site and the scene of many power struggles as it was a strategic location for controlling trade between northern Greece and the Peloponnese and between the Ionian and Aegean Seas. The ruins are split over two sites – the lower town and Acrocorinth, towering 575m on a rocky hill only accessible by a 4km climb. We didn’t make the exhausting trip to see the chapels, mosques, houses and battlements contained within the 2km fortified walls.

Temple of Apollo with Acrocorinth in distance

Instead we rambled around the ruins and the museum of the lower site which included the Temple of Apollo, fountains, a huge stoa, odeon, rostra and theatre.

Fountain

Amazing carved oarsman

More Do's & Don'ts, fences and locked gates

1908 - Not so fussy then about climbing on the ruins!

The museum alone was a little treasure with all manner of artifacts including mosaics, pottery, jewellery, bronze works, reliefs and statues. It has a much more recent history than the objects on display though – some of which date back to prehistoric times. In 1990 it was the scene of a robbery where the museum night guardsman was attacked and bound up whilst 285 artifacts were stolen along with 1,000,000 drachmas. The money was to pay the staff which beggars the question why that much cash was held on site and why a government organisation was still paying its staff in cash – but this is Greece and cash is king here.

It was the largest robbery from a Greek museum and unusual in that a secure museum with catalogued artifacts was targeted rather than an unprotected unexcavated site. The story has a happy ending though - 274 of the items including marble heads, pottery, glass and jewellery were recovered in Miami in 1999 and finally returned to Corinth in 2001 after diplomatic negotiations.

Last night as the sun set we watched the locals in Nafpoli sitting out with their fishing rods all along the harbour wall. 

Nothing was caught but we saw some big’uns jumping out to sea. So after a trip to the local angling shop Dave is now kitted out with a line, hook and bait - I have got some sausages in the fridge though if the big one gets away!

Fishing..... or feeding the fish????