Mycenae & Epidavros

This morning we started our day with a critical decision - should we rent a car for our 2-day stay in Nafplio. This decision would affect our itinerary greatly. Based in Nafplio, we planned to visit Mycenae and Epidavros for sure, and possibly Olympia, all in two days. This would be nearly impossible to do without a car because of the sparse public transportation available. Olympia, although only about 150km away, is actually a 3-hour drive due to the mountainous routes, and even longer via public transportation as there is no direct bus. So this by itself would take one full day. Mycenae and Epidavros are very close to Nafplio in contrast, but because of the sparse schedules, would take 2 days to visit without a car.

So our first task at hand this morning was to find a rental car. We found an Avis and another local rental car company, both of which did not have a car available for today. I was ready to give up visiting Olympia, since I really like Nafplio anyway so wouldn't mind spending more time here. So we could just take it easy and visit Mycenae and Epidavros in 2 days. As we headed back to our hotel, we passed by a sign pointing to another local car rental company. We walked into the narrow alley and proceeded to read the prices posted on the window. A lady was on the phone but quickly came out to help us. Compared to the guy at Avis, this lady was very friendly. We were happy to learn that they did have a car available for today and tomorrow. This did open up our options but I was still undecided on whether I want to drive ourselves. The lady reassured me that it wouldn't be hard. She pulled out a map and highlighted the routes for me, telling me what signs to look for. She did warn us however, that on our way to Olympia, we'd have to pass by Tripoli, a rather big city, and getting out of it might pose some difficulties.

At 40 euros a day this was considerably more expensive than Santorini. It was a 50-50 decision but we did finally decide to go with the rental.

Our first destination was Mycenae. The lady instructed us to make a right turn after a certain sign, after which it would be a simple straight drive. Well, right off the bat we must have made the wrong turn as it didn't look like we were going the right way weaving through some very narrow streets in some little town. We decided to make a U-turn and followed a sign pointing towards Athens, at least to get out of the little town. By chance we were able to get on a major road and even found a sign pointing to Mycenae. It was smooth sailing thereafter.

After Knossos in Crete, Mycenae is probably the most documented archaeological site mentioned in any Greek history textbooks. Visiting these two sites in person was the highlight for me, at least as far as sightseeing goes. I must admit, however, that visiting the ancient theatre at Epidavros was more fun. During our visit a couple of visitors demonstrated the exceptional acoustics of the theatre, one by singing, the other by dropping a coin, from the centre of the stage.

Considering how we started our day with much uncertainty this morning, we were very happy with how our day went (except for the rather heavy pouring rain at the end of our visit in Epidavros). We ended our day with a dinner back in Nafplio, followed by a leisurely stroll around the Plateia Filellinon area.

Lost & found: we left both our guidebooks at 2 different car rental companies. Right before we drove out from Nafplio, the lady from whom we rented the car chased us down to give us one of our books. We had no idea where we left the other. At the end of the day after we drove back to Nafplio, we tried our luck by visiting one of the other local car rental companies and did actually find the book!