From Delphi to Naupactus the distance is 82 miles. The road climbs down the last bastions of Parnassus into the plain of huge gnarled olive trees, some of which are said to be centuries old, the olives which they produce-large, black and fleshyknown as "Amphissa olives", being among the best in Greece. A fork in the road leads to Itea, a few miles off. Itea is linked with the Piraeus by a service of small steamers. Larger boats, belonging to well-known shipping lines, sometimes anchor in the course of conducted cruises, off Itea, whence tourists may visit Delphi. The little port is without interest.
On the tapering western arm of the Bay of Itea lies the port of Galaxidion, famous for its sailors and caique-building trade. The Byzantine church of the Saviour dates from the 13th century. (Galaxidion is best approached by caique from Itea or by one of the small steamers that ply in summer along the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth.)
The other road leads in a westerly direction to Amphissa (14 miles from Delphi), situated on the slope of a hill crowned with a medieval castle built by the Franks and Catalans in the 13th and 14th centuries, when the town was known as Salona. The ruins of the castle include some quadrangular and polygonal walls, two watch towers, two gateways, a cistern, a circular dungeon and the remains of a Frankish and a Byzantine church.
At Amphissa one road leads through the gorge and pass of Gravia to Brallos in the Boeotian plain; another, terminating at Naupactus, 68 miles away, mounts the massif of Ghiona in a series of hairpin bends. Magnificent views are obtained of Delphi, Parnassus, the gorge of the Pleistos and the olive groves of the Sacred Plain. After passing the village of Lidorikion (devastated in the Second World War), the road begins to climb slowly down the Mornos valley towards Naupactus and the sea. The banks of the Mornos are thick with plane trees and the silver line of the stream winds sport ween steep green banks which the road follows until it reaches the coast at Naupactus.
From Naupactus, the road runs along a short flat coastal strip to Antirion, whence the ferry can be taken across the narrows of the Gulf of Corinth to Rion and the northern shore of the Peloponnese. Westward the road leads to Missolonghi (Mesol6ngion) and the northwestern provinces of Akharnania and Epirus.
It was off Naupactus that the naval battle of Lepanto was fought in 1571, when Don Juan of Austria, commanding an allied fleet of papal, Venetian, Genoese and Spanish vessels inflicted a decisive defeat on 200 Turkish galleys. Cervantes, who was serving on a Spanish vessel at the time, lost an arm in the battle.
A visit to Naupactus and even an overnight stay, is definitely recommended. Situated on a fertile coastal strip washed by tributary streams of the Mornos, the little harbour faces the backcloth of Mt. Erymanthus, where Hercules slew the Erymanthine boar, in the Peloponnese. The bathing beaches are excellent, and there is an air of friendliness about the little town. Luxuriant bushes of oleanders, bright in summer with red, pink and white blooms, line the banks of the streams, and the flowers and comparatively lush vegetation present a strong contrast to the bleak and austere grandeur of the Parnassus country.
The hill behind the town is dotted with scattered blocks of masonry, choked in undergrowth, of a vast rambling Venetian castle (some of the walls and bastions are still intact), through which it is pleasant to wander and obtain glimpses of the blue waters of the channel sport ween the mainland and the Peloponnese. It is hardly less agreeable to sit in the evening at one of the cafes in the little semi-circular fortified harbour and watch the caiques chugging in and out sport ween the two miniature medieval towers guarding the entrance into the port, while the lights begin to twinkle in the villages strung out along the opposite shore of the Peloponnese.