Well, here I am, at the entrance to Propantes.
text moved
Monday, April 25, 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Your fifteen minutes start NOW!
Those who can read the language might like to have a look at the article about extreme sports as a stress release in TA NEA in which I have a significant amount of the column inches. There is also my photo which needs to be clicked on to be seen properly.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005
Cyclopean Masonry in Nafplio?
So after all the bile swelling our livers had subsided enough to allow us to go back to Nafplio, we went and went in haste because all rooms we had tried to book over the phone were full. The only way to be sure of a room there after the Hotel Kapodistrias had shafted us was to go to Nafplio and find a room.
So we got in the car and scooted over the canal and down to Nafplio and parked in the public parking whatsit, and set off walking around the whole of the old town in a sort of anti-clockwise direction looking for places like hotels and rented rooms which might be suitable for sleeping in. We found plenty of places to sleep, but none had rooms for Easter weekend and we fell back on the Elena Hotel where we had stayed during the 7th Panhellenic Speleological Meeting in October.
So, why all the excitement?
Well, walking through the old town, and in a place where it was totally unexpected, what should we stumble across, but something which I had been searching for for years without success. I had read about it many times, but was always "digging in the wrong place". It is not really surprising that I had not found this thing, given its site and situation.
We were walking along Psaromahala street (I think!) when we went past an abandoned building which did not seem to be in repair-and-rent mode. It was just the front of the building, the façade, and behind there was an empty yard and behind the empty yard was a wall.
And so it was, that after many years, I was finally looking at some of the original fortification of Nafplio / Nauplia. You read about the Mycenaean fortress at Nafplion, and stories of chamber tombs in the rock and what have you, but I had never seen any of this older Nafplio. I had always expected these traces to be up by the Palamidi fortress but of course, it makes so much more sense for them to be here.
I initially got over excited thinking that here was a stretch of legitimate LHIII Mycenaean fortification, but on looking at it in the sober light of Monday morning, back at work, on the computer screen, it looks more like a Hellenistic stretch here. I will add a comment if I ever find out what exactly that this is. It's interesting to see that it would have been right in someone's kitchen or living room originally.
There are two views, one from the road, through the destroyed building, the other from a height a little bit above the yard.
It was the ray of sunshine which made the futile searching for a room more bearable.
The through the window view
The view from above
So we got in the car and scooted over the canal and down to Nafplio and parked in the public parking whatsit, and set off walking around the whole of the old town in a sort of anti-clockwise direction looking for places like hotels and rented rooms which might be suitable for sleeping in. We found plenty of places to sleep, but none had rooms for Easter weekend and we fell back on the Elena Hotel where we had stayed during the 7th Panhellenic Speleological Meeting in October.
So, why all the excitement?
Well, walking through the old town, and in a place where it was totally unexpected, what should we stumble across, but something which I had been searching for for years without success. I had read about it many times, but was always "digging in the wrong place". It is not really surprising that I had not found this thing, given its site and situation.
We were walking along Psaromahala street (I think!) when we went past an abandoned building which did not seem to be in repair-and-rent mode. It was just the front of the building, the façade, and behind there was an empty yard and behind the empty yard was a wall.
And so it was, that after many years, I was finally looking at some of the original fortification of Nafplio / Nauplia. You read about the Mycenaean fortress at Nafplion, and stories of chamber tombs in the rock and what have you, but I had never seen any of this older Nafplio. I had always expected these traces to be up by the Palamidi fortress but of course, it makes so much more sense for them to be here.
I initially got over excited thinking that here was a stretch of legitimate LHIII Mycenaean fortification, but on looking at it in the sober light of Monday morning, back at work, on the computer screen, it looks more like a Hellenistic stretch here. I will add a comment if I ever find out what exactly that this is. It's interesting to see that it would have been right in someone's kitchen or living room originally.
There are two views, one from the road, through the destroyed building, the other from a height a little bit above the yard.
It was the ray of sunshine which made the futile searching for a room more bearable.
The through the window view
The view from above
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Lycambes? who he? - Hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio rant
Yeah, so I never was one for invective and all that jazz. Well, not since a long time ago when I was experimenting rather haphazardly and awkwardly with lyric meter.
Anyway - a while back, in this post (before going) and also in this post (after being there), I mentioned the hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio and how it was a nice place to stay. Well, it is a nice place to stay, but the idiots who run the Hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio are idiots and have lost me for a client.
We had a good time in December, so I call them in early February to ask for rooms for easter weekend - which in our calendar is the weekend 30 April / 1 May. The girl on the phone asks me to phone back in March, so we phoned back in late February and are told again to phone back in March, since they weren't taking bookings for Easter yet. In early March, I am told to phone back in a few weeks and I asked them specifically, like, "you better not tell me there's no rooms when I call back in late March because I've been trying to book these rooms since early February" and they assure me that there will be no problem.
So on the weekend of 26 March we phoned, and they told us that they were fully booked, cunts that they are. I asked why they had led us along for so many weeks, and they told me that they had a group which had not yet put down the deposit, but did in the end and they didn't know whether or not they would have the rooms on account of this delayed downpayment, and for this reason, they kept telling us to keep calling back.
Would it have hurt them to tell us that they had a group which had not paid a deposit yet?
Idiots.
So, I will never stay at the Hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio again, although I liked the place and had every intention to spend a number of weekends with them.
Anyway - a while back, in this post (before going) and also in this post (after being there), I mentioned the hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio and how it was a nice place to stay. Well, it is a nice place to stay, but the idiots who run the Hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio are idiots and have lost me for a client.
We had a good time in December, so I call them in early February to ask for rooms for easter weekend - which in our calendar is the weekend 30 April / 1 May. The girl on the phone asks me to phone back in March, so we phoned back in late February and are told again to phone back in March, since they weren't taking bookings for Easter yet. In early March, I am told to phone back in a few weeks and I asked them specifically, like, "you better not tell me there's no rooms when I call back in late March because I've been trying to book these rooms since early February" and they assure me that there will be no problem.
So on the weekend of 26 March we phoned, and they told us that they were fully booked, cunts that they are. I asked why they had led us along for so many weeks, and they told me that they had a group which had not yet put down the deposit, but did in the end and they didn't know whether or not they would have the rooms on account of this delayed downpayment, and for this reason, they kept telling us to keep calling back.
Would it have hurt them to tell us that they had a group which had not paid a deposit yet?
Idiots.
So, I will never stay at the Hotel Kapodistrias in Nafplio again, although I liked the place and had every intention to spend a number of weekends with them.
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