PALAMIDI FORTRESS

Erected by the Venetians between 1711 and 1714, this fortress (Φρούριο Παλαμηδίου/Frourio Palamidiou) is one of the most impressive in Greece, offering magnificent views over Nafplio and the Argolic Gulf. It's located 216 m above sea level, on the city's highest hill, named in honor of a mythological figure: Palamedes, son of Nauplios, the legendary founder of Nafplio. You can get there either by road, skirting the hill from the south-east (3.6 km from the city center), or by the daunting staircase (913 steps!) that zigzags up the hill from the Continental Gate. Our advice: take a cab up from the east and walk back down from the west. In either case, bring water, good shoes and a hat. On site, the fortification system is very well preserved, with eight independent bastions designed to support each other. Five have been renamed after ancient Greek generals (Leonidas of Sparta, Themistocles of Athens, Epaminondas of Thebes...) and another bears the name of Achilles, legendary hero of the Trojan War.

Towards the Robert bastion. The second bastion after the parking lot and the Epaminondas bastion, which guards the eastern entrance, is that of Athenian general Miltiades, winner of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Used as a prison from 1822 to 1926, it housed death row inmates and... a French guillotine that operated until 1913. To the south, the bastion of Phocion (an Athenian general of the ^4th century BC) is the only one to have been built by the Ottomans after the fortress's bloody capture on July 20, 1715. This date marked the end of five centuries of Venetian presence in the Peloponnese. In the center, the Agios Andreas/San Gerardo bastion was the best defended and was also converted into a prison. It houses an ancient Catholic chapel dedicated to Saint Gerardo, protector of the family of the Venetian commander Agostino Segredo. On November 30, 1822, the day after Palamidi was captured by Greek insurgents, a religious ceremony was held here. Since then, the bastion and its chapel have been named after the saint celebrated on that day in the Orthodox calendar: St. Andrew. The Western Gate then leads to the vertiginous staircase. Halfway up the slope, you can take a break in the shade of the Robert Bastion. It was renamed in honor of French lieutenant Robert François, a philhellene from Nancy who fell in the defense of the Athens acropolis in December 1827.