Livadeia

Livadeia, capital of the Boeotia regional unit, sits on the western slopes of Mount Helikon about 130 kilometres northwest of Athens, at the point where the Herkyna river rushes out of a rocky gorge. Water is the making of the town. At the mouth of the gorge the celebrated Krya springs gush cold and clear from the base of the cliffs, feeding a shaded run of plane trees, stone bridges, cafes and tavernas that is the heart of local life. On a hot day it is one of the coolest and most atmospheric spots in central Greece.

The gorge was sacred in antiquity. This was the seat of the Oracle of Trophonius, one of the most famous and forbidding in the ancient world, where pilgrims underwent an ordeal of ritual purification before descending alone into a narrow underground chamber to receive their answer. Croesus and other great names of history are recorded among those who came. Niches and marble fragments cut into the rock beside the springs mark the sanctuary, and the whole ravine still carries a strange, watery hush.

Above the gorge rises the castle of Livadeia, a medieval fortress largely built by the Catalan Company in the fourteenth century and reckoned one of only a handful of Catalan castles in Greece. The climb rewards you with wide views over the red rooftops, the springs and the plain beyond. Down in the town, a stone clock tower, given by Lord Elgin, keeps watch over the streets.

Livadeia is a real provincial town rather than a resort, and it wears its history lightly among everyday shops and squares. Its greatest asset for travellers, though, is its position. It stands directly on the road to Delphi, and just 35 kilometres west lies the magnificent Byzantine monastery of Hosios Loukas, a UNESCO World Heritage site whose golden mosaics are among the finest in Greece.

Most visitors pause here to eat beside the Krya springs and to break the journey west, but the town rewards a longer look: castle, oracle, running water and, close at hand, one of the great monasteries of the Orthodox world.