Palamidi fortress

Palamidi is the huge Venetian fortress on the 200-metre rock behind Nafplio, and the famous way up is the stone stairway from town — 999 steps in local legend, somewhat fewer in tired reality. The climb itself photographs: switchbacks of worn stone, the town dropping away, agaves and prickly pears against the walls. From the bastions at the top the reward is total — Nafplio's tiled roofs and the Akronafplia ridge below, the Bourtzi like a toy in the bay, mountains ringing the gulf.

Morning is the honest recommendation, for two reasons: the stairway is shadeless and brutal from late morning onward in summer, and early sun front-lights the town and the bay below the west-facing bastions. Sunset from the top is beautiful but means either descending the stairs in the dark or having a car at the top — the fortress is also reachable by road to the upper gate, which quietly rescues anyone in wedding clothes.

It is a ticketed site with posted hours; check them same-day against your light. Inside, the bastions are a maze of ramps, cells and arched galleries — St Andrew's bastion, with its chapel and framed views, is the concentrated photogenic core when time is short. Water, hats, flat shoes: the fortress concedes nothing to style.