Nafplio

The Venetians finished it in 1714, and 999 steps climb to it from the town. Inside, eight separate bastions were built so that losing one left the rest holding.

A small rock island in the harbour was turned entirely into a fort. Five minutes by boat, and records note that the town executioner once lived out there.

The oldest of the three, and a lift runs up to it. From the top, Palamidi and Bourtzi fall into one view.

The paving is marble, which turns slick in the rain. Venetian balconies and Ottoman windows share the same lane.

A kilometre of path runs along the rock below the fortress. Ladders drop into the sea partway along, and people go straight in.

A marble square where two former mosques now serve as a theatre and an exhibition hall. In the evening children kick a ball across it while the adults sit around the edge.

Forty minutes away, an ancient theatre for fourteen thousand survives almost intact. Crumple paper on the stage floor and the top row hears it.

Half an hour away, a bronze age citadel on a hill entered through the Lion Gate. The stair down to the underground cistern is dark enough to need a torch.

Beads meant to be turned in the hand are gathered by period and by material. The shop below lets you roll amber and horn ones before choosing.

Forty minutes on foot round the back of the fortress reaches this sand. Pines come down to the beach itself, and people take their spot in the shade.

UNESCO lists this Mycenaean citadel, only a few kilometres up the road north of Nafplio. Its walls are of stones so huge that legend credits giants, and a stone gallery still runs inside them. Far emptier than Mycenae, so you may walk the walls alone.

In 1831 Kapodistrias, first governor of modern Greece, was shot dead at this church door. The bullet mark by the entrance is still in the wall under glass. It sits in a small square off an old town lane, easy to walk past.

A reclining lion cut into the rock of Pronia hill around 1840, honouring Bavarian soldiers who came with King Otto and died of an epidemic. The old town is roughly a 15-minute walk away. Set in a neighbourhood park, it sees few but local morning walkers.

Columns of a temple of Zeus stand at the site of games held every two years for all of Greece. The stone tunnel athletes walked through to the stadium survives, scratched with their graffiti. Agiorgitiko vineyards surround it, so add a winery tasting.

Cut into a hillside in Argos, a short bus hop from Nafplio, with startlingly steep seating. Larissa hill rises behind, a medieval castle on its crown. It opens off a main street in town, so you enter beside people out shopping.