Galaxidi's shipping rose after 1718, when a treaty between the Ottomans and Austria opened trade in the Adriatic, and for two centuries its ships carried cargo across the Mediterranean.

The numbers show how it ended. In 1892 the town owned 126 sailing ships. By 1903 there were 92. Steam had made wooden sailing vessels uneconomic, and although some Galaxidiot families moved into steamships and kept going into the 1930s, the shipbuilding and the shipyards had gone.

The two harbours

The main harbour is the one with the cafés along it. The second, Hirolakas, is on the northern side and is older. It is sometimes called the widows' harbour, after the families who waited there for ships that did not come back.

The museum and the Chronicle

The Nautical and Historical Museum occupies five rooms and holds ship models, navigational instruments, figureheads and charts.

Its most important object is the Chronicle of Galaxidi, written in 1704 by a monk named Efthymios — a local history covering several centuries, and one of the few documents of its kind to survive from Ottoman Greece.

The Church of Agios Nikolaos, above the town, has a carved wooden screen made around 1900 by woodcarvers brought from Epirus for the purpose.

In the town park are the tomb attributed to King Lokros and remains of the wall of ancient Oianthi, the settlement that stood here before.

The flour war

On Clean Monday, the first day of Lent, the people of Galaxidi meet at the harbour at midday with bags of flour and coloured powder and throw it at each other for hours.

The custom is old. An English traveller who came here in 1801 described it happening under Ottoman rule, and it took its present form from about 1840 — when it was the last celebration before the crews sailed for the season. The three days of festivities begin on the Friday evening with a fire in one of the squares.

It is one of the best-known carnival customs in Greece, and the town fills.

The Corinthian Gulf is enclosed, sheltered and deep, which makes it good sailing water. Galaxidi is a regular stop on the route between the Ionian and the Isthmus of Corinth, and boats tie up along both harbours.

Kayaking along the coast and out to the small islands offshore is straightforward in the calm morning water.

Inland, Mount Parnassus rises behind the town, with walking in summer and skiing in winter.

Galaxidi's beaches are pebble, small, and close to the town.

Kalafatis, at the entrance to the town, is the organised one, with sunbeds and calm shallow water.

Giannakis, on the other side, is quieter and undeveloped.

Rosiki, two kilometres out, and Agios Vasilios, at about four, are further along the coast and quieter again. All of them have clear water and low pine slopes behind them.

This is a gulf rather than an open sea, so the water is flat almost all summer and warmer than the Aegean.

Galaxidi eats from the gulf. Fish, mussels and shrimp are the everyday food, and the tavernas along the harbour cook them simply.

The area behind the town is one of the largest continuous olive groves in Greece, running inland towards Amfissa, and the oil is the local product. Amfissa olives — large, dark and firm — are what to take home.

For sweets, the almond spoon sweet is the local one, eaten with coffee.