Nafplio

We intended to spend a night on one of the islands, but (and apparently this isn't at all unusual) the ferry boat service was on strike. So being confined to dry land, we went for a drive out to Nafplio, which was absolutely gorgeous. There are two big rock hills in town; our hotel was at the top of one, and a castle was at the top of the other. There was also a tiny island in the water that had a castle built on it. CASTLES, people.The island castle when we approached:...later on, at night (this was a 30-second exposure by the way, and people were constantly walking between the camera and the castle--aren't long exposures interesting?)......and later that night, from another viewpoint. I didn't notice the chair out on the rocks in the lower right corner until I saw the finished image in the viewfinder.This is the path we walked, along a cliff in the pitch black, to get to the location where I took the above shot. That lamp was (obviously) not on.We stopped for ice cream, which was super-delicious, when the saddest of all possible sad things happened! Rest assured that after I stopped photographing his misery I gave him *my* ice cream cone to make up for it. If that's not true love, what is? I GAVE AWAY my ICE CREAM.We hoped some more night photography could return us to our pre-ice-cream-disaster-moods, so we drove to a parking lot to mess around doing some more. I like this:Lefteris in action - great body shape.Our hotel room was amazing. I think it's permanently lodged in my "happy place" archive. Let me put it like this: bubble bath in a jacuzzi tub that was open onto the room, door/windows wide open, and the sounds of someone playing piano at a party drifting up from the town below. Heaven.This was the next morning, and it's just a snapshot (I should have planned ahead and taken some shots when we first arrived), but still:Views were spectacular.The following morning we left our hill, and went up to the castle, on the other hill (below).The ceiling in the chapel:Very graphic:It was sort of overcast the whole time, but it made for really interesting skies and sea. I actually really enjoyed that even though I was longing to soak up as much sun as possible. The clouds sort of hung in the air like mist and the blue faded through in places...