We have been in Europe for almost 2 months and have not seen a familiar face since we left Seattle. We like traveling with each other but sometimes it gets a little old just talking only to your spouse. That changed in Nafplio, Greece when we had 2 sets of visitors. We love to meet up with other nomads or with our friends and family from Seattle, and we are always trying to get people to come meet us on our travels. Nafplio is a beautiful old Greek town on the water overlooked by some fortresses on the hills. We were able to find an affordable 2 bedroom Airbnb so we were able to actually host people. Our first visitors were our nomad friends Emily and Olaf who have been spending a couple of months in Athens and we convinced them to take spend a night with us in Nafplio.
Emily and Olaf are from our old Seattle neighborhood of Beacon Hill but we didn’t actually meet them there. We have seen them in several nomad meetups in Seattle and then also met up with them at a brewery in Antigua, Guatemala last year. This will be our 3rd country meetup with them and our first time hosting other nomads in our Airbnb. We always have a lot to talk about with other travelers and it fun was to have multiple meals with them. Besides swapping our travel stories, we did some exploring. We wandered all around the fortress above town for some great views, and the next morning we all did the “free” city tour together. We hope to meet up again with these guys in Europe next Spring but for sure we will see them next summer in Seattle.
After Emily and Olaf left to return to their homebase in Athens, we met up with our old friends Michelle and Steph. They had a much longer trek to meet up with us but we are sure grateful that they did. They spent 3 nights with us in Nafplio and will be coming with us to our next couple of destinations. We have known these guys for years and have even traveled with them before but this is the first time we have seen them outside of America.
We spent a lot of time catching up and drinking wine on our patio but we also found some time to get out and see some sights. We checked our some more OGS (Old Greek Shit) at a couple different Unesco World Heritage locations. We visited the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus which has a Greek Theater that is in excellent condition. Then we went to the archaeology site of Mycenae which has ruins from the 15th century BC. Way older than the Ancient Greeks. We also did a lot of walking around the shops and restaurants and waterfront of Nafplio.
Nafplio is a tourist town with a lot of knick knack shops, jewelry stores and Greek restaurants. We ate good and we still aren’t seeing the tourist prices we normally see in tourist towns. The food has been great and the prices are still more than reasonable. I did do a lot of walking and took some great pics. Another good town for photography.
Our plans had us heading to the island of Andros next. Unfortunately, we just found out that the ferry workers strike has been extended and we had to make a quick change of plans. Our Airbnb gave us a full refund even though they didn’t really have to. We were really excited about this place so if you are going to Andros, visit this Airbnb. But we quickly found a beach town called Ermioni which does not require a ferry. We will head there for 3 days of Greek beach life with Michelle and Steph!