Open water swimming from Nafplio

The transfer from Athens Airport runs the coastal road past the Corinth Canal and into the Argolid, around two hours when the traffic at Elefsina behaves. Nafplio reveals itself the way it always does — Bourtzi castle on its rock in the harbour, Palamidi above, the Venetian arcades shaded against the late sun. The afternoon is yours to settle in; the welcome dinner is a short walk along the seafront, with the briefing over coffee for distances, the wetsuit question, and the morning meeting time.

Aim for a flight that lands before 17:00. After that the dinner gets late and the first swim is harder than it needs to be.

The first swim leaves from the rocks below Arvanitia at 9am, while the harbour is still quiet, and follows the cliffs round to Karathona — three and a half kilometres of pine-shaded coast with the Palamidi walls climbing above the right shoulder for most of it. The water through here is around 22°C in june, with visibility good enough to see the seabed in five metres. Lunch is a packed picnic on the Karathona pebbles — bread, koroneiki-rich tomato salad, local cheese — then the walk back along the coastal path, forty minutes through pine and cyclamen.

Dinner is at one of the seafood tavernas at the south end of the seafront. Order the gavros if it’s on; the swordfish travels less well in the heat.

Forty-five minutes east by minibus to Palaia Epidavros, where the harbour town’s submerged Roman quay sits two to four metres below the surface a short way offshore. Three kilometres along and back over the stones — wall lines, an amphora foot, the right angle of a doorway visible through the water at midday when the light drops straight down. Optional in the afternoon: the Asclepieion and the great theatre fifteen minutes inland, the acoustics test that everyone does and that still works.

Dinner is at the working fishing harbour in Palaia Epidavros before the drive back. The bigger seafront places are tourist traps; the small koutouki behind the church is the one to ask the guide for.

The classic Argolic crossing. From Tolo beach the swim runs out across open water to the chapel-topped islet of Koronisi — about a kilometre and a half each way, with the support boat sitting between the swimmers and the channel traffic. The cove on the back side of the island is sheltered enough for a long picnic on the rocks; bread, horta, watermelon, the guides’ tomato dip. The return swim is faster — the afternoon breeze pushes the line back toward Tolo.

Optional stop on the drive home at Vivari, a small fishing inlet most groups skip. Worth the twenty minutes for a cold beer at the harbour kafenio.

A day to dry the wetsuit. The 999 steps up to the Palamidi are best taken before 9am — by ten the sun is on them and the cruise-ship coaches are at the upper gate. The old town is quieter mid-afternoon during the siesta; the Komboloi Museum and the small Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation on Vasileos Alexandrou are the two worth an hour. Tsipouro and a plate of mezethes at one of the small ouzeries on Staikopoulou before dinner.

Skip the harbourfront restaurants on Bouboulinas. The same fish, twice the price, slower service.

An hour and a quarter east to the Methana peninsula, the only proper volcano in the Peloponnese — black lava tongues running into the sea, sulphurous springs warming the water close inshore, a faint match-strike smell when the wind drops. The swim runs along the western shore for three and a half kilometres, with two pockets of warmer water at the spring outflows that are odd in a good way. Lunch on the rocks, then the option of the short ferry across to Poros for an hour of pastel houses and the clock tower on the hill.

The springs are real but the water around them stains silver jewellery; if you wear it, take it off before the swim.

South to Kosta and the short water-taxi crossing to Spetses for the last swim — a sheltered loop along the island’s pine-backed eastern coast, around three kilometres with the support boat alongside. Town time afterwards: horse-drawn carriages instead of cars in the old harbour, the Bouboulina museum if it’s open, a long lunch at one of the harbourside places that still sets a cloth on the table at two. Back to Nafplio in the late afternoon for the farewell dinner — the guides usually book the small koutouki in the upper town rather than the seafront.

Pack the wet kit in a separate bag tonight. The morning leaves earlier than you’d like.

Breakfast on the hotel terrace — yoghurt with thyme honey, the seasonal fruit, strong coffee — then the road back through the Argolid and over the Corinth Canal to Athens Airport. Allow three hours to the terminal door for a comfortable margin; the Elefsina industrial stretch is unpredictable.

Book afternoon flights where possible. Morning departures mean a 5am alarm and a tired farewell.