The Gulf of Corinth – I

Position: 38°22’50″N 22°23’11″E

Once through the western end of the Corinth Canal the Gulf of Corinth floats at your feet. Greece’s third largest city, Patras, sits at the end of a long series of sleepy villages lining the gulf’s shores. Well protected from the extreme winds of both the Aegean and the Adriatic, the opportunity for lazily gunkholing around for a month or more makes for a worthy indulgence. Far enough from summer charterers’ well-worn itineraries up and down the Ionian Islands, the Gulf seems like one of those open secrets that you read about but are always five years late getting to. Most of the yachts we encountered had the look of liveaboards, or at least month-long charters with serious sailors. The wind gods blew zephyrs in our favour, that is towards the west, and we sailed most of the way across.

Galaxidi

Our first stop, the enclave of Galaxidi, lies about 33 nautical miles northwest by west from Corinth. We dropped our anchor in a pretty cove with just enough swinging room for one properly anchored Valiant. At the far end of our cove, we could see a few paddlers at the public beach. The air rasped with the shisk-shisk-shisk of cicadas. Their sound rising and falling with the rhythm of the warm breeze as it rustled through the stands of pine trees. The naval academy overlooking the cove appeared closed and shuttered, whether for the summer or forever I couldn’t tell.

Putting on our walking shoes, we hopped in Nelly as far as the beach, then headed towards town on foot. Turning a corner, we looked out across the harbour. A low hill with a large, red-domed Greek Orthodox church dominated everything. Narrow, whitewashed lanes twisted and radiated like tendrils outwardly, towards the water. The blank walls broken occasionally by dappled shade from bougainvillaea reaching overhead.

Inlets on both sides form the natural outlines of the quaysides. Yachts large and small tie up along the front. Backing stern to the quay in the traditional way, once moored an owner can step off their boat and into one of several cosy tavernas. Given such picturesque charm we were surprised at how quiet it seemed. It gave some indication of how many homes there are secondary ones, or investment properties. Still, it’s close enough to Athens that weekends get busy – or so we were told.

Wine

We entered via the southwestern corner and almost immediately stumbled across a quaint, so last century, wine store. It looked the part, with high ceilings and heavy, planked flooring. Special sales goods were arranged on barrels, around which you had to negotiate in order to reach the wines lining three of the four walls. The entire building is up for sale, to the consternation of the store’s owner. But at a price so optimistic we opted for a couple of bottles of local vino instead.

Our return to a ‘wet’ country, after Turkey’s relative dryness, encouraged us to delve a little more methodically into modern Greek wines. Two varietals stand out for us, Moschofilero and Malagouzia. Both produce dry, light-bodied, mineral wines with plenty of honey and citrus on the nose. As you’d expect, both go excellently with traditional Greek summer foods like salads, fish, and the delicious things they do with fava beans here as part of a mezze. These are not your great uncle’s retsinas. These are well crafted wines with aspirations.

A little further around the bay and up the mountain sits the former home of the Oracle of Delphi. Rather than rent a scooter and trail up to the ruins, we took our bottles and headed back to Aleta for a game of cribbage and a million Euro sunset.

Our next installment includes a bit about Lord Byron, poet, playboy, and Greek revolutionary.