We drove along the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth on our way from Delphi to Olympia. The Gulf is a large body of water with a narrow mouth to open sea, in the west toward Italy. The coast is quite picturesque, with clear water and little villages. We noticed how calm the sea is here, almost flat and with very little tidal change. We were heading for a large suspension bridge which will take us across the gulf to the southern part of Greece, Peloponnesus, for our next two nights.
We stopped at a little town called Nafpaktos for a break, and to admire the remnants of Venetian fortifications from the 1400's when it was ruled from Venice. Nafpaktos was fought over because its position gave it control over the entrance to the important Gulf of Corinth, and under the Venetians it the town was enclosed in a protective wall parts of which still remain, including the little towers on each side of the harbour entrance.
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| The harbour at Nafpaktos |
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| The beach. The tide only rises and falls by about one foot here. |
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| The harbour mouth, with little Venetian tower. |
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| Coffee stop, with the harbour wall in the background. |
The Rio-Antirrio bridge crosses the Corinthian Gulf near Nafpaktos. At almost 3 km long it is the third longest suspension bridge (after one in China, and the french Millau Viaduct) in the world. We crossed here on our way south toward Olympia. Ave stopped our van so we could take pictures from the toll gates.
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| The bridge across to Peloponnesus. |
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| The tolls gates have an automatic system which allowed our van to drive straight through |
Quite a few of the motorways we used had tolls, with an automatic system which let our our minibus through without stopping.
