Argos

Argos lies at the heart of the fertile Argive plain in the eastern Peloponnese, a short drive inland from Nafplio and the coast. It has a strong claim to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in Europe, with settlement traced back roughly seven thousand years to a Neolithic community at the foot of the Aspis hill. Powerful in the archaic and classical eras and a persistent rival of Sparta, Argos has been lived in without a break ever since, and today it is a busy, unpretentious market town rather than a polished resort.

That everyday character is part of its appeal. Life centres on a large central square ringed by cafes and the neoclassical market hall, and the town makes an authentic contrast to the tourist gloss elsewhere in the Argolid. Its museum holds fine mosaics and sculpture drawn from the surrounding sites.

History is woven through the modern streets. On the southern edge of town lies the ancient theatre, cut into the hillside in the Hellenistic period and among the largest in the Greek world, with seating once numbered in the tens of thousands. Beside it stand the remains of a Roman agora, baths and an odeon. Above everything rise two acropolises: the lower Aspis and, higher still, the castle of Larissa, a hilltop fortress with Bronze-Age foundations overlaid by Byzantine, Frankish, Venetian and Ottoman walls. The climb or drive up Larissa is rewarded with a magnificent panorama over the whole plain to the sea.

Argos is usually seen as a companion to the marquee sites nearby: it sits within easy reach of Mycenae, Epidaurus and the Heraion of Argos, and most travellers base themselves in Nafplio, about 15 minutes away, and drop into Argos for its theatre, castle and workaday atmosphere. Give it an unhurried half-day, climb to Larissa for the view, and you come away with a sense of just how deep the roots of Greek town life run.