Many centuries ago, when the Venetians were the rulers of this land, a ship was coming from Crete to Nafplio loaded with wine. When it was getting close and the sailors could see the fortification of the town, a big storm hit them. It was a rough sea very rare in this part of the world. The sails were torn apart, the mast broke and the ship seemed doomed to end up on the bottom of the sea. The shepherds that were looking from the land were sure that nothing could save the unfortunate sailors. The sky was lit by thunderbolts, the boat seemed to be just a couple of waves away from destruction and the captain did the only thing he could do, pray! He called on St Nicolas, the protector of the naval, making a vow to built a chapel with earth and wine, if they were to be saved. It was then that he saw a light on the coast. A glimpse of hope lightened his soul and did a last attempt to control the half broken boat. And the miracle happened! The storm stopped as suddenly as it had started and a wave of silence spread around the scenery. The Saint felt sorry for us, claimed the stunned captain and led the boat to the coast. Here, he said, here that I saw the light, I will built the church. And so he did. His crew and himself were working relentlessly until they finish the building of the chapel. They used soil from the ground and wine from the ship to built the walls and three months later they did it!
At least that's what the legend says. It is up to you to believe it or not. The sure thing is that there is a small chapel on this spot and a marble sign with its name:
SAINT NICOLAS THE WINE-BUILT
And a bench for tired travellers and their doggies to rest :)
I read that story on the sign left of the church's door. It is written in an older style of Greek, with words that is hard to be translated so I just did an abstract for you, trying to render, more or less, the meaning of the original text.
Looking at the serenity of the sea it's hard to imagine a storm as horrible as described above, let alone the drama of those people, real or imaginary, it doesn't really matter. I did the same trip from Crete to Nafplio ten months ago, in a less dramatic way and loaded, not with wine, but with hopes, dreams and plans for the next chapter of my life.
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As the months are passing by the dreams and the plans evolved, transformed and altered in the way that dreams and plans use to do. I don't know about you but I have always found myself going with the flow and never sticking in a predetermined plan that I would follow to the letter.
As I was walking back to the car I was wondering how the months to come will turn out and how close they'll be to the plans that were made a year ago. And then I looked at the face of our canine friend and I forgot all about it :)
You can read this as the second part of the walking post that I wrote yesterday, or not, it doesn't really matter. They can be read as two individual posts too, although the pictures were taken during the same walk.
The camera that I used is a Canon EOS 6D mark II with an EF 24-105mm lens attached. I edited the photographs in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic .
Unless stated otherwise, all the pictures and the words are mine.
Thank you for reading and if you want to know more about me you can check out my introduction post.
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