Amfissa

Amfissa is the quiet capital of the region of Phocis, spread across the lower slopes between Mount Parnassus and Mount Giona. It looks out over one of the defining landscapes of central Greece: the immense olive grove of Amfissa, a plain of silvery trees that fills the valley down to the sea at Itea. Some of these groves are said to be among the oldest and largest in the country, and their fruit, the plump, dark Amfissa olive, carries the town's name across Greece.

Above the rooftops stands the Castle of Salona, a Frankish fortress raised in the thirteenth century on far older foundations. Its walls and towers, part-ruined but atmospheric, reward the climb with wide views over the town, the olive plain and the mountains beyond. The name Salona was the medieval and Ottoman name for the town, and it recurs in local history right up to the War of Independence, in which Amfissa played its part.

Down in the town, Amfissa keeps a strong sense of its craft heritage. It was long a centre of coppersmiths and bell-makers, and the old workshops of the metalworkers' quarter, the Chalkeia, still cluster together in the lower streets. The plane-shaded square by the Kefalovryso springs, where water gushes from the rock, is the town's cool, green gathering place in summer.

Amfissa is not a resort, and that is much of its appeal. It is a real provincial capital going about its business, with a handful of churches, a small archaeological museum and unfussy tavernas serving the produce of the surrounding land. Most travellers pass through on the way between Delphi and the coast, but it makes an honest, inexpensive base, well placed for the ancient site, the port town of Itea and the mountains on either side.

Come for the castle and the view, stay for the olives and the springs, and use the town as a doorway into a corner of Greece that most visitors only glimpse from the road.