Today continues pictures from Easter in Nafplio.

I've posted several videos to today's blog, because the church ceremonies need to be heard
in addition to just seeing a still shot. The page may take a little longer to load than my typical blog entries, but it's appropriate.


Of course we ate our Easter meal in a restaurant,
but many Greeks gather at home or, if they have
a lot of extended family, they may gather at a

park or some other larger venue. They will roast a lamb over the coals as shown here. The smaller spit contains the lamb's innards stuffed into intestine. And, they are phenomenally hospitable. As we walked by this family sitting in the yard grilling their Easter lamb they invited us to come in and have something with them. OK, we were going out for our meal - we could just stop for a drink. Greeks are extremely hospitable. Mark also told me that there must have been a death in the family in the past year because the women are wearing black.

When we left Athens on Friday for Nafplio we left early to avoid traffic. The original plan was to spend three nights and return Monday. News reports spoke of how many millions of Greeks were on the road, and most would be heading back to Athens on Monday. Mark and Martha suggested that we stay an extra night in Nafplio and make our way back to Athens on Tuesday to avoid the craziness. Since the university has a two week Easter break, Kim and I were fine with that.

Each day as we drove into Nafplio from our hotel in Nea Kios, we had a tough time finding a parking place. It seemed quite a few Athenians were spending the holiday in Nafplio. We figured that Monday night it would be easy to find a parking place. We were wrong. Either other Athenians had the same idea of waiting an extra day, or locals from the surrounding area figured it would be safe to go to Nafplio now that the "city folk" had left their town. Either way, there was no discernible difference in the crowd Monday night than the crowds on Friday, Saturday or

Sunday nights.

Two of the four nights we stopped for authentic Italian gelato here. A brother and sister from Rome had opened this shop, where they make the ice cream - and even the cones - on the premises. We only managed to make it in there twice. Every time we walked by, the place was packed to the gills. I did get an opportunity to talk a little with the sister. Lots of fun to be able to speak the language, though she was a capable speaker in Greek and English in addition to Italian.

I will explain a little about the three videos below. The first shows the inside of a church on Holy Saturday. While the cantor is singing, some people are seated in the church, but the majority shuffle in and out. They come in to light a candle and pay a visit to the icons, most stopping to kiss one or more.


The second video shows the square outside the church, about 11:30 p.m. The soldiers are lined up and salute as the officers enter the church. The singing you hear goes on for hours.

The third video shows the square shortly before midnight. The priest has emerged from the church. The candles have been lighted as the flame has been passed. It started from inside the church and was passed from worshipper to worshipper.

This last video shows midnight. You hear the church bells and the fireworks (we were told this was the quietest of the churches for fireworks - others are much louder), and you can see the people wishing each other Happy Easter - more precisely, they wish each other "Good Resurrection."