Nafpaktos

Nafpaktos lies on a bay on the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, its name from the ancient Greek for "boatyard" — a fitting origin for a town that served as an Athenian naval base during the Peloponnesian War. Centuries later, under Venetian control, it became known as Lepanto, the name history attaches to the 1571 naval battle fought at the mouth of the gulf, where the combined fleets of Spain, Venice, and the Papacy broke Ottoman naval power in one of the largest sea battles of the era; the writer Miguel de Cervantes fought there and lost the use of his left arm, and a statue near the port still honours him today. The town changed hands between Venetians and Ottomans several more times before joining independent Greece, and its 2021 census recorded close to 13,000 residents in the town itself.

The fortified harbour, ringed by Venetian walls that climb up to a castle overlooking the bay, remains the town's most recognisable feature and divides the waterfront into the Psani and Gribovo districts. Boats can moor along the quay or anchor in the calm water of the bay itself, and a long pebbly beach stretches west of the port with both organised and quieter stretches. Given its position controlling access to the Gulf of Corinth and its easy reach of ancient Delphi inland, many gulet cruises in Greece call in here while transiting between the Ionian and the Saronic Gulf.