kbmtravel

Hi! I would love some advice on a suggested itinerary from those who have gone to Nafplio. I have searched through forums and read and reread http://www.visitnafplio.com/ (thank you to the creator!) but it is a bit overwhelming because I'm not sure of the distance of each place listed from Nafplio and we are leaving for our trip in 10 days (we're going to Scotland first) so I'm running out of time to book tours and plan how we'll spend our time there. For reference, I am going with my husband, we are 28 and 30 and this will be our first time to Greece, but not to Europe. Our trip will be Santorini (3N), Naxos (4N), Nafplio (3N), then Athens (3N). I haven't booked our flight from Naxos to Athens yet, the flight options are 1:30-2:10 or 5:20pm-6. (booking this very soon!) Thinking we will take the 1:30 but it depends how much time we need for Nafplio vs. Naxos as I'm sure it will be hard to leave Naxos!

September 24 Tuesday Flight to Athens from Naxos then rent car to Napfio, staying at hotel Amymone and Adiandi
September 25 Wednesday
September 26 Thursday
September 27 Friday Travel to Athens, we're taking the Athens Free Tour at 5pm so arrive sometime around 3 or 4 (flexible) to return rental car and check into hotel (not sure if that's enough time)

Here's what I found that sounds interesting (we don't need to fit everything in!):
Mycenae
Nemea
Nemea wineries (recommendations? should we stop at more than one? should we do this by ourselves or on a tour?)
Corinth Canal
Epidaurus
Walk around town
Swim at arvanita beach or asine
Palamidi castle
Acronafplia fortress
Have a drink at waterfront bar at sunset
Syntagma square and sit at a cafe for dessert
Drive to one of the other beaches close to Nafplio (Kastraki? Tolo? Vivari? Karathona?)
Also on the maybe list: Tiryns, the archaeological museum, or a day trip to____?

One day I am thinking of taking a tour with Grecopaths, they suggested a custom tour of Nemea/Mycenae along with wine tasting (think this is at the same farm that dinner is at), farm to table dinner, and cycling. Then I'm not sure if we should use the other full day for a day trip and spend the arrival and departure days mostly in Nafplio (except for the time for Corinth Canal & Epidaurus), or if we should spend the whole day in Nafplio.

Questions:
1) What would you suggest for an itinerary? Is there anything not on this list that you would recommend seeing/doing based on our interests? There are so many day trip options and archaeological sites to choose from, it's hard to pick.
2) Which beach would you recommend besides Arvanita? Karathona (we would drive there)? Kastraki? Or should we go to Tolo for a short beach day on our last day? Vivari? Are the sun loungers at these beaches free (I’m assuming not), and would they all be taken early in the morning?
3) Should we stop at Corinth Canal and Epidaurus to or from Nafplio? Should we stop at one on the way up and one on the way back, or both together? How long should we expect to spend at Epidaurus between the theater and museum?
4) Has anyone done any walking tours in town to learn about Nafplio? Would you recommend one, or should we just walk around ourselves and explore? I see there's a Greeking.Me tour
5) Are there any wineries you would recommend in Nemea? We'll have a car (my husband doesn't love wine so he wouldn't drink much but I do so he would drive We wouldn't need to do a tour at the winery, just a tasting.

In case it's helpful, we enjoy history, tours (walking tours, cooking classes, food tours,(relaxed) bike rides), eating, drinking, trips to the beach. Not huge museum people unless there's a tour to give it more context and we would prefer to see the ancient sites with a guide where possible because I have a feeling we wouldn't enjoy it as much without one to explain what we're looking at. (Thinking no guide for Epidaurus, though, since we can do that on the ride to/from Athens.)

aliced

Inasmuch as your departure date is next week, I'll give you an overview of our time in Nafplio. We went to the Peloponnese on a looong guided day tour (12-hr ) from Athens, where we spent 5 nights. First stop was the Corinth Canal which was jammed with tourists all parked at a rest/bus stop, you walk some yards to the Canal, 1/2 hr here plenty. But then the driver took us four up into the village of Corinth which was lovely, and showed and explained the ruins there. This took probably another hour. We then drove to Mycenae which was unforgettably wonderful. We explored that on our own, any guidebook lays out the area very well. There is a small museum/shop where to this day I kick myself for not buying the "Linear B" tee shirt that was the coolest souvenir, ever, and nothing like it was found in the rest of our 2 week trip. The museum there is also great. Allow at least 2 hrs for this site. Then our driver took us into Nafplio and dropped us off for lunch, and browsing time. Frankly, the town did not fascinate us much, there were many boat tours available, perhaps one to Hydra would be good, as we had read much about that. We walked the town and waterfront for perhaps 2-3 hours total. Our last stop on this hectic day was to Epidaurus, which also was fascinating but not as much as was Mycenae for sure. There is a small museum there and probably for this stop you would need 1-1 1/2 hrs tops. I would say that two nights in Nafplio would be more than adequate, and I would use the additional night in Athens -- exploring the Parthenon takes a day especially when approaching from the west (past the ancient Odeon Herodus Atticus amphitheatre where Foo Fighters performed month after our visit!) and descending to the east to explore that side of city; exploring Kolonaki/Mt. Lebettus another full day, being sure to include the Benaki Museum; the Acropolis Museum is best seen after going up to the Parthenon we felt, so that took a third day which also included a few hours over at the National Archeological Museum (do not walk here) whose first floor treasures include the Mycenaen gold from the grave circles you would have previously seen -- truly this place was a wow for us, exhausted as we were.
Hope the above is helpful, realize did not specifically answer your questions-- we loved Greece!

kja

Check google maps for distances, times, etc. -- it is remarkably accurate, IME.

1. No bad choices! For MY choices, see my trip report. The section on Nafplio (and approaching it) begins with post # 137
With Gratitude for a Glorious Solo Month in Greece

3. If the times works, why not? Just stopping to see the Corinthian Canal takes only a few minutes -- maybe 15 minutes to cross from one side to the other and back; more if you want to stroll around the area or stop there for a break. I spent about 4.5 hours at Epidaurus; you might want much less or (less likely) a bit more time.

4. I prefer to work with guidebooks, and found both the Rough Guide and Michelin Green very informative. If you like guided walks -- and many people do -- I can't help.

HappyTrvlr

kbmtravel

aliced, thank you! do you feel that having a tour guide added to your experience at Mycenae, or do you feel your experience there wouldn't have been much different without one? I was surprised you spent a whole day exploring Kolonaki/Mt. Lebettus, did you do anything in particular there? I had written those down but didn't expect to spend too long there but maybe I need to look more into that neighborhood! National Archeological Museum - I will have to look into this, thanks! Did you take a bus there?

KJA, thank you for writing that trip report! I remember reading it back in April and have read the Nafplio part again (and will read the rest again when planning Naxos/Santorini/Athens) I should have mentioned - yes of course I can look up the distances but I meant that with so little time left to plan it was overwhelming trying to figure out which places to see that were mentioned on the Nafplio site without knowing the distance for each one. I was trying to narrow down the many options before looking up distances.

HappyTrvlr/KJA, I'm so torn on whether to use a guidebook or a tour guide for Mycenae. As bad as it sounds, I'm afraid that we would get there and think "this is a bunch of ruins" and the experience would be lost on us without a guide telling stories, etc. to bring it to life. The guidebooks I have gotten thus far don't say much about Mycenae so I will go to the bookstore and check out some others to see what it says about it. Thanks!

aliced

We had no guide, as Tours By Locals (great company, Vancouver based) guide gave us alot of information en route but they are not allowed to accompany tourists into the sites. Mycenae was easy to navigate with much signage, we also had copied pertinent pages from several guidebooks to take along and toss as we travel. Mt. Lebettus (accessed by funicular or taxi) gives you a birds eye view of Athens from the Med, to Temple of Zeus, to Olympic fields, to the whole Parthenon, our weather was splendid that week, so it worthwhile. The small private Benaki museum is near Kolonaki which is in the vicinity of Mt.L. We stayed in the Plaka, walked to change of guard at 11, and continued in that direction. And no, take a pre-fixed-fare cab to National Museum. They scalp tourists so you must decide fare upfront. Between Plaka and the National is a more seedy part of town. And you do not need guides on the smaller islands.