Travel Writer Tigger - Palamidi Fortress: Prayer and Powder

Following on from my pronunciation lesson yesterday D is a soft TH, (like their) - so it is Palamithi Fortress, but no one makes that transliteration to help the English speakers.

My humans describe themselves a 'jammy bastards' when it comes to visiting historical sites for free.  It first happened at Mystras when without planning it we turned up on a free Sunday in the Winter time.  It turns out there is one free Sunday a month through the Winter months.  They can't remember which one.  When Megalos Mr B was here over a year ago they accidented themselves into a free day at the Ancient Agora of Athens on the same promotion.  They have freebied into a couple of other places on this deal, always accidentally, but it was Tuesday when they visited Palamidi Fortress.

And it turned out to be National Museums Day, with free entrance to all .... 

Jammy bastards.

F had said she wanted to climb the stairs from the town up to the citadel and figuring that she would want to do it in the cool part of the day, I very generously started patting her on the face before 0630, to make sure she was up and "at 'em" before it got too hot.  In the end we checked out first, and Mr B and I tipped F out of the car on the edge of the old town of Nafplio.  We drove round and up a hill and approached Palamidi Fortress from the back.  F went straight up the cliff bit at the front.  If I was planning a military assault on this fortress, I would definitely start it in the carpark - easy access and plenty of flat ground to roll my firepower onto.

Old Town and Acronafplio (other old fortifications, and ugly modern THING)

New(er) Town (try to imagine everything you can see covered in Athens style urban development)

Bits of the stairs going up...

F eventually emerged on our side of the fortification and dragged Mr B inside for a look around.  The bit I could see amounted to substantial stone walls, bastions all over the place, slits for firing muskets from, and look-out posts.  Returning later the humans reported that the rest of the place was substantial stone walls, bastions (8 in all), slits and openings for fire power, and look-out posts and protected walkways.  

So the tour inside had a point to it?  Maybe it was the views.

They commented that the place appeared to be pure military with no evidence of a peace-time purpose (like a governors residence, or administrative offices), no keep, no non-barracks living place.  

A bastion outpost (the carpark is below the wall on the left)

The heart of the fortress they described as: prayer and powder - a small chapel (built by the Venetians who originally designed and built most of the fortress) and a powder magazine that shared a wall with the chapel.

For my part I pointed out the monster asparagus growing on the hillside above the carpark.  F said 'not asparagus', but it still looks like asparagus to me.

Monster asparagus and substantial stone walls

Our little holiday wrapped up with a return to 'our' beach and my humans going swimming while I guarded the car.

We are back home.  The little car has disappeared and a woman came on Wednesday to unbond my van.  Mr B departed this morning taking my van with him.  F is researching Greek railways.....we have seen quite a few on our travels but are unclear as to how many of them are still in regular use despite the appearance of having fresh ballast, no weeds, and all the crossing signals still in place on the roads.

Seaward view from the top.