Galaxidi

Galaxidi sits on the west coast of the Gulf of Itea, an arm on the northern side of the Gulf of Corinth in central mainland Greece. It belongs to the municipality of Delphi, lies 15 kilometres southwest of Delphi itself and about 7 kilometres from the town of Itea, and consists of a compact old town of nineteenth-century sea captains' mansions, stone-paved lanes, two natural harbours and a waterfront of tavernas. It is not a beach destination. On a cruise through the Gulf of Corinth it is one of the better places to stop.

Legend and History

Local tradition credits the town's founding to Locros, a descendant of Deucalion, roughly two centuries before the Trojan War, and gives its first name as Oianthi. What the archaeology shows is a different story: modern Galaxidi stands on the ancient city of Chaleion, a fortified settlement established around 700 BCE that remained in use until the 2nd century CE.

The Middle Ages brought repeated conquest and long instability. Under Ottoman rule a settlement re-emerged here as a trading port, and through the nineteenth century Galaxidi grew prosperous on shipping, with a substantial merchant fleet of its own. The mansions along the quay were built with that money. Steam ended the trade, and the houses survived largely because nothing came along to replace them until tourism arrived.

The Town

The old town has kept its traditional architecture and its narrow paved streets. The domed church of Agios Nikolaos, with its two bell towers, crowns the hill between the two harbours and is visible from most points in town; it is still an active parish. Several of the captains' houses are in public use — the town hall occupies the Tsalaggyras mansion and the folk art collection the Aggelis mansion, with the Mpourzeiko another of the surviving grand houses.

The Harbours and Anchorage

Galaxidi has a natural double harbour. The deeper of the two, the main port, takes yachts and fishing boats and is where the restaurants and shops are. The shallower Hirolaka, the older basin, is mostly empty, with a promenade running round its edge. The quays were refurbished within the past decade and carry water and electricity points along their length, which makes this one of the more yacht-friendly harbours on the gulf.

The Gulf of Corinth is the Ionian inlet that separates the Peloponnese from the Greek mainland. Enclosed on both sides, it has little fetch, and Galaxidi is protected from most winds. July and August are the exception in terms of space rather than weather: berths fill, and a boat arriving late may spend a while manoeuvring or move on to a nearby bay. Vessels crossing between the Aegean and the Ionian through the Corinth Canal have the length of the gulf to cover, and many gulet cruises in Greece call in here to break that passage rather than run it in one leg.

Athens is roughly a three-hour drive away, and Athenians treat the town as a weekend retreat, so Saturdays are considerably busier than midweek.

Things to Do

Walking is the main activity: the two waterfronts, the lanes behind them, the mansions. A house dating from about 1870 holds both the town's Archaeological Collection and the Maritime and Historical Museum of Galaxidi, which covers the shipping years in detail.

The public park contains the remains of the ancient city walls and a tomb traditionally attributed to Locros, the legendary founder.

Three churches are worth the detour. The Monastery of the Metamorphosis of Sotiras, built in 1250 by Michael II of Epirus, stands at around 300 metres above the town. Agios Nikolaos is the church over the harbour. Aghia Paraskevi has a marble zodiac circle set into its floor, carved in 1911 by a local captain named Elias Skourtis and positioned so that light falling through a hole in the roof marks the date at noon.

Across the water from the main harbour, the Pera Panta peninsula carries a pine wood planted by local schoolchildren in the early twentieth century, with tracks leading up to viewpoints over the town and the gulf.

Swimming is not the town's strength, but there are beaches nearby. Oianthi, on the waterfront, is pebbled and calm. Kendri is shaded by trees and has no facilities whatsoever — no umbrellas, no loungers, no services of any kind.

The Flour War

The town's best-known event is alevromoutzouroma, the flour war, held on Clean Monday, the first day of Greek Orthodox Lent. Coloured flour is handed out and the harbour area turns into a running battle until the supplies are gone. There are defined zones for participants and observers, but the observer side is no guarantee of anything — wear clothes you do not mind losing.