Nafpaktos (English Naupactos, Greek Ναύπακτος) is the sort of town that one runs into in Greece where, actually seeing it, one begins to understand why it was so famous for such a small town.
Nafpaktos sits on the Attica side of the Gulf of Corinth, just before the most narrow point between the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian Sea. Thus, whomever controlled Nafpaktos effectively controlled the Gulf of Corinth.
The Athenians settled the Messenian Helots that had escaped from Sparta here in 453 B.C., where they waged a bitter war against them during the period leading up to and including the Peloponnesian War. It belonged in turn to the Macedonians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Despotate of Epirus, the Latin Duchy of Athens, the Knights Hospitallers, and finally the Venetian Republic (1407-1499), when it was captured by the Ottoman Turks who held it until 1829 (except for a brief period of 1687-1689). It is most famous for being the location of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where the naval power of the Ottoman Turks was broken by the Holy League (Lepanto being the Venetian name for Nafpaktos).
The city retains much of its protective walls.
The harbor of Nafpaktos:
A cool mosaic at the entrance to a church:
Dinner was anchovies in lemon and olive oil:
Looking across to the Peloponnese. It is said that the sons of Hercules built their ships here and then invaded the Peloponnese (thus incidentally establishing the two royal houses of Sparta).
Ah, the Battle of Lepanto, that brings back memories of a university history class, but I had forgotten the Greek name of the local town, my maternal grandfather would be unhappy since he had been born in Greece. Dinner looks good there TB, BTW all the tests yesterday were negative, good news even if the diagnosis was atypical chest pain (sigh).
ReplyDeleteDinner was great, Nylon12. I had no idea the Battle of Lepanto was fought nearby - for some reason I pictured it somewhere else in the Mediterranean.
DeleteGreat news on the overall visit, even if the diagnosis was frustrating.
I had to look up the Gulf of Corinth on a broader map to get a sense of it's location. My mental picture of Greece doesn't have the inland body of water, just the surrounding Ionian, Aegean and Mediterranean seas, at least until I looked it up this morning.
ReplyDeleteEd, I had not quite grasped both how close Attica and the Peloponnese are to each other (about a 3 hour drive by car from Athens to Sparta) as well as how narrow the strait that enters the Gulf of Corinth was. A case of seeing the geography really explaining history.
DeleteI didn't know fresh anchovies looked like that! I always just thought they were those things nobody wants on their pizza.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful views. Is the sky typically cloudy most days in Greece? Or maybe just the time of year?
Leigh, I had not seen them this size either. They were delicious!
DeleteI think we were lucky - much of the time we had blue skies. Our guide seemed surprised that we had such "good" (uncloudy and rain free?) weather. We did bring umbrellas as it was noted as a risk.