Nafplio

Nafplio was the ancient port of Argos, built on a rocky peninsula joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, and it may appear on an Egyptian list of the 14th century BC. Legend named it after Nauplius, son of Poseidon, though Strabo thought the name came from its harbour. Conquered by Argos around the time of the Second Messenian War, it was deserted by the 2nd century AD. The Acronauplia, whose walls go back to pre-classical times, was a town in its own right until the 13th century.

French crusaders took Nafplio in 1212, and it became part of the lordship of Argos and Nauplia, sold to Venice in 1388. As Napoli di Romania it was one of Venice's key places in the Levant: the lower town was expanded and fortified, and it held off Ottoman sieges by Mehmed the Conqueror and Suleiman the Magnificent before surrendering in 1540. The Ottomans called it Mora Yenişehir. Venice returned in 1685, made it the capital of its Kingdom of the Morea and built Palamidi in 1711–14, but the town fell back to the Ottomans in 1715.

In the War of Independence Nafplio was a major Ottoman stronghold, besieged for more than a year until starvation forced its surrender in 1822. Its walls made it the seat of the provisional government. Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first head of state, landed here in January 1828 and made it the capital, and was assassinated on the steps of the church of Agios Spyridon in October 1831. King Otto ruled from Nafplio until the capital moved to Athens in 1834. After the Greek Civil War the town became one of the first places on the mainland to develop mass tourism, and its old buildings survived the post-war rush to replace them with apartment blocks.

Nafplio's identity rests on its role in the birth of modern Greece. Statues of Kapodistrias, King Otto and Theodoros Kolokotronis stand around the town, the former mosque on Syntagma Square is still known as the Vouleftiko, the parliament house, and the War Museum occupies the building of the country's first military school. The old town keeps a distinct architecture of colourful, Venetian-influenced houses beside neoclassical and eclectic buildings, and its branch of the National Bank of Greece is the only example of Mycenaean Revival architecture.

The town is also a small cultural centre. The University of the Peloponnese has a School of Fine Arts here, with a theatre department, the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation studies and displays Greek costume, and the Nafplio Festival brings a week of classical music to the castles and historic buildings each June. The Komboloi Museum celebrates the strings of worry beads that Greeks turn in their hands to pass the time. Carnival is celebrated with masquerade parades.

Life in the old town is lived outdoors and on foot. In the evenings families, couples and groups of friends stroll the harbour front and the lanes, and the town is known as the place Athenians come for a weekend or a day out. Churches expect modest dress, and the Orthodox calendar, above all Easter, shapes the year.

About 14,500 people lived in Nafplio at the 2021 census; the wider municipality, formed in 2011, also takes in Asini, Midea and Nea Tiryntha. The town is the capital of the regional unit of Argolis, and much of its population lives in the modern districts that spread north and east of the old peninsula, on land that has nearly doubled in area since landfill projects began in the 1970s.

Tourism is the main business, with visitors coming all year, most of them from Athens and other Greek cities, followed by Germans, French, Scandinavians and others. Farming matters almost as much: the town is surrounded by a fertile irrigated plain that grows oranges, lemons, peaches, apricots, olives and almonds. The port is too shallow for much besides bulk cargo, but fills with yachts in summer, and there is no industry of note.

Weekends and weekdays feel very different. On Friday and Saturday nights the old town fills with visitors from the capital, while midweek and in winter it returns to a provincial rhythm of offices, schools and cafés. The suspension of the railway in 2011, during the financial crisis, left the town dependent on roads and buses.

Nafplio's own specialities come from the kitchens of the Argolid. Among them are gogges and striftades, two kinds of local pasta, the second made by hand; giosa, made with lamb or goat; bogana, lamb with potatoes; and dishes of ankinares, artichokes. Many of the town's tavernas line Staikopoulou Street in the old town and the streets near the promenade.

Oranges are the produce of the plain, and portokalopita, an orange cake soaked in syrup and usually eaten with coffee, is a local favourite; oranges and olives are the main crops of Argolis. The town is also known for its locally made ice cream, sold in shops across the old town and eaten on evening walks along the harbour.

Beyond the local dishes, the tables are those of all Greece: meze, small dishes shared and often taken with ouzo or tsipouro; grilled souvlaki; and horiatiki, the Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, feta and olives dressed with oregano, lemon juice and olive oil. Wine comes from Nemea, elsewhere in the region.