Nafplio: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Before Athens, Nafplio was the capital of modern Greece. The revolution against the Ottomans began in 1821, and for its first years the new state was run from these streets — its first parliament sat in a mosque, its first governor was shot at a church door, and its first king stepped ashore at this harbour. Two hours, flat, all inside the old town, and the marble is slippery after rain.
A short history of Nafplio
Nafplio was the first capital of modern Greece, from 1829 to 1834. Before that it changed hands between the Venetians and the Ottomans. In 1471 the Venetians built the Bourtzi fortress on a small island in the harbour, and between 1711 and 1714 the Palamidi fortress on the cliff above the town, but the Ottomans captured it as early as 1715. In 1822, during the War of Independence, the town was taken by the Greeks. On 9 October 1831 Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of Greece, was assassinated at the door of a church in the town. In 1834 the capital was moved to Athens.
The ten best sights in Nafplio
1Syntagma SquareMarble underfoot, the Venetian arsenal on one side and a mosque on the other
2Archaeological MuseumIn the Venetian arsenal of 1713; the bronze armour from Dendra is the reason to go
3VouleftikoAn Ottoman mosque that became the first parliament of modern Greece
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4Trianon
Another mosque on the square, later a school, now a theatre
5Agios SpyridonKapodistrias was shot at this door in 1831; the bullet mark is under glass
6Agios GeorgiosThe cathedral, and the first king of Greece was sworn in here
7Komboloi MuseumWorry beads, one room, and the owner explains every string
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8Kapodistrias Square
The statue of the first governor, at the edge of the old town
9Kolokotronis ParkThe general on horseback, and the town’s shade in the afternoon
10PalamidiClimb the steps before nine or drive round the back; there is no shade
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Nafplio →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Nafplio:
Free walking tours in Nafplio
The first capital
Before Athens, Nafplio was the capital of modern Greece. The revolution against the Ottomans began in 1821, and for its first years the new state was run from these streets — its first parliament sat in a mosque, its first governor was shot at a church door, and its first king stepped ashore at this harbour. Two hours, flat, all inside the old town, and the marble is slippery after rain.
- Syntagma Square · The name means Constitution Square, and the buildings around it are the town’s whole history in one frame: a Venetian naval arsenal of 1713 on the west side, an Ottoman mosque on the south, the neoclassical banks of the new Greek state on the north. The floor is marble and the children of the town play football on it every evening.
- Archaeological Museum · Upstairs in the Venetian arsenal is the Dendra panoply: a complete suit of bronze armour from around 1400 BC, found in a tomb a few kilometres from here. It is the oldest full set of armour known in Europe, and it is built of plates like a lobster’s shell, with a collar so high the wearer could barely turn his head.
- Vouleftiko · An eighteenth-century mosque that the revolutionaries took over and turned into the first parliament of the Greek state — the name simply means the parliament building. The deputies who argued here about what Greece should be were sitting under a dome built to face Mecca.
- Agios Spyridon · On the ninth of October 1831 Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of independent Greece, came to this church for the morning service. Two members of the Mavromichalis family of the Mani, whose chief he had imprisoned, were waiting at the door; one shot him and the other stabbed him. The mark of the bullet in the wall is kept under glass.
- Agios Georgios · The powers of Europe chose a king for Greece, and they chose a seventeen-year-old Bavarian prince named Otto. He landed at Nafplio in 1833 with Bavarian regents and Bavarian soldiers, and this cathedral is where the new monarchy was blessed. Two years later the court moved to Athens and the town went quiet.
- Lion of Bavaria · The soldiers Otto brought with him did not die in battle. A typhus epidemic went through their barracks in 1833 and 1834, and King Ludwig of Bavaria, Otto’s father, had this lion carved into the rock of the hill in their memory. It lies with its head on its paws, and it is in a suburb most visitors never reach.
Three castles and the sea
Nafplio was fortified three times over, on three different heights — a rock in the harbour, the ridge the old town stands on, and the hill above it all — and the Venetians, the Ottomans and the Greeks each took the town by taking one of them. This route climbs to the top and comes down to the water. Half a day; climb Palamidi before nine or not at all in summer.
- Palamidi · The Venetians built this fortress between 1711 and 1714, and the Ottomans took it in 1715 — a year after it was finished. The town says there are nine hundred and ninety-nine steps up; everyone who counts gets fewer. Kolokotronis, the hero of the revolution, was later imprisoned here under sentence of death by the government he had fought for.
- Kolokotronis Park · The general rides a bronze horse at the edge of the old town. He led the revolution in the Peloponnese, was tried for treason under the Bavarian regency, sentenced to death and pardoned — and the town that once jailed him now has his statue in its park.
- Akronafplia · The oldest fortification here, on the rock the old town clings to: the lower courses of the walls are ancient Greek, the upper ones Byzantine and Venetian. Until Palamidi was built, this was the castle, and the Turks called it Its Kale, the inner castle.
- Arvanitia Promenade · A path cut round the base of the rock at sea level, and the whole town walks it at sunset. There are iron ladders down to the water along the way, and people swim straight off the rocks — the nearest thing Nafplio has to a town beach.
- Panagitsa · A tiny chapel to the Virgin built into a hollow in the rock face along the promenade, whitewashed and lit with candles. It faces the open gulf, and fishermen and their families have kept it going for generations.
- Bourtzi · The Venetians built this castle on a rock in the harbour in 1473 to close the channel with a chain. After independence it became the home of the town’s executioners, who were not allowed to live on land among the people, and in the twentieth century it was a hotel. It is best seen from the quay as the lights come on.
The age of heroes
The plain of Argos is where the Greek myths are set: Agamemnon ruled from Mycenae, Heracles was born to serve the king of Tiryns, the Hydra lived in the springs of Lerna. The places are real and so are the walls — built in the Bronze Age with stones so large that later Greeks believed giants had laid them. A full day and a car; Mycenae at eight, before the coaches.
- Tiryns · Pausanias, who travelled Greece in the second century AD, wrote that a pair of mules could not shift even the smallest stone in these walls. The later Greeks called this kind of masonry Cyclopean, because only the Cyclopes could have lifted it. It is five minutes from Nafplio and almost always empty.
- Argive Heraion · The great sanctuary of Hera, the goddess of the plain, on a hillside between Argos and Mycenae. The tradition says the Greek kings swore their oath to sail against Troy here. It is a site of terraces and foundations, and on most days you will have it to yourself.
- Lion Gate · Built around 1250 BC, and the two lions over the lintel are the oldest monumental sculpture in Europe still standing where it was put. Their heads were made separately and are lost. Heinrich Schliemann dug here in 1876 and found the gold masks of the shaft graves just inside.
- Treasury of Atreus · Not a treasury and not Atreus’s — it is a royal tomb, a beehive vault of stone rings, and for more than a thousand years it was the largest dome in the world. The single stone over the door is estimated at over a hundred tonnes, and nobody is sure how it was lifted.
- Ancient Theatre of Argos · Argos claims to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in Europe, and its theatre is cut straight into the side of the Larissa hill — steeper and larger than the famous one at Epidaurus, and almost unvisited.
- Lerna · The springs here were where the Hydra lived, the many-headed serpent Heracles killed as his second labour. Under a modern roof on the site is the House of the Tiles, a large building of the Early Bronze Age that burned around 2200 BC — a thousand years before Mycenae.
Getting to Nafplio and getting around
- Bus Station · Buses to Athens, Mycenae and Epidaurus; Athens airport is about two hours by road
- Nafplio Harbour · The small boat to the Bourtzi leaves from the quay
- Argos · The market town of the plain, twelve kilometres away, and the regional buses run through it
Cheap eats in Nafplio
The plain of Argos behind the town is Greece’s orange country, and in winter the roads are lined with crates sold from the backs of trucks. The hills to the north are Nemea, where the red Agiorgitiko grape grows. The counter food is souvlaki and gyros wrapped in pitta, a few euro each, and on the square the town eats ice cream at any hour.
- Staikopoulou Street · Tables in the lane under the flowers; evenings
- Syntagma Square · Ice cream on the marble, and the whole town comes out after nine
- Bus Station · Souvlaki wrapped to go, a few euro, before the bus
- Nemea · Cellar tastings, a few euro
- Argos · The market town; oranges by the crate in winter
- Palaia Epidavros · Fish by the harbour after the theatre
- Tolo · Gyros on the beach road, open late
Museums in Nafplio
Nafplio sits in the middle of the oldest archaeological landscape in Europe: Mycenae, Tiryns, Argos and Epidaurus are all within forty minutes. The town itself is the museum of the first Greek state — the parliament in a mosque, the governor shot at a church door.
- Archaeological Museum · The oldest full armour in Europe, upstairs
- Mycenae · Open at eight; the site museum is included
- Vouleftiko · The first parliament, in a mosque; seen from outside
- Agios Spyridon · The bullet mark from 1831 is under glass by the door
- Komboloi Museum · Worry beads from across the eastern Mediterranean
- Ancient Nemea · The athletes’ tunnel still has their graffiti on the walls
Nature and day trips near Nafplio
The Argolic Gulf is shallow and closed, and the water is calm and warm into October. Behind it the plain is flat and green with orchards, and the hills around it are dry limestone with springs that come out of caves — which is why the myths put monsters in them.
- Karathona · The long sandy beach behind Palamidi
- Arvanitia Promenade · Swim off the rocks; ladders into the water
- Kefalari · A church in a cave mouth, and plane trees by the water
- Sunken City · Walls a few metres down; snorkel from the beach
- Drepano · A sheltered bay with the beaches locals use
- Kandia · Quiet water at the end of the road
Things to do in Nafplio with kids
Castles, a boat to an island fortress and myths with monsters in them: the region was made for children. The gulf beaches are shallow and calm. The one thing to plan around is the heat — the sites have no shade, so mornings for ruins and afternoons for the sea.
- Bourtzi · The little boat from the quay to the castle on the rock
- Palamidi · Bastions and tunnels; drive up if the steps are too much
- Epidaurus Theatre · Drop a coin in the centre and listen from the top
- Tolo · Shallow, calm, and a long sandy beach
- Lerna · The swamp where Heracles fought the Hydra
- Kolokotronis Park · Shade and a playground in the afternoon
Holy places in Nafplio
The mosques of Nafplio outlived the Ottomans by becoming something else — a parliament, a school, a theatre. The churches carry the history of the new state. And older than all of them is the sanctuary of Hera on the plain.
- Agios Spyridon · Where Kapodistrias was killed in 1831
- Agios Georgios · The cathedral where the first king was blessed
- Trianon · A mosque that became a school and then a theatre
- Panagitsa · A candle-lit chapel in the rock over the sea
- Argive Heraion · Terraces on a hillside, and usually empty
- Kefalari · A church built into the cave where a river begins
Nightlife in Nafplio
Nafplio is not a party town; it is a town where Athenians come for the weekend and stay up late on the waterfront. The evening is the harbour, the square and the lanes, and in summer the big night out is a play at Epidaurus.
- Nafplio Harbour · Bars along the quay facing the lit Bourtzi
- Syntagma Square · Cafés on the marble until after midnight
- Epidaurus Theatre · Summer festival nights; bring a cushion
- Little Theatre of Epidaurus · Concerts in July among the olive trees
- Arvanitia Promenade · The sunset walk; the whole town does it
- Tolo · The beach bars, and the only late music nearby
Frequently asked questions about Nafplio
What is there to see in Nafplio?
The top sights in Nafplio are Syntagma Square, Archaeological Museum and Vouleftiko. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Nafplio?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Nafplio without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Nafplio?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Nafplio, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The first capital.
How do you get to Nafplio and get around?
The main ways are Bus Station, Nafplio Harbour and Argos. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Nafplio, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Nafplio that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Nafplio for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.