Amfissa Olive Grove

The plain running from Amfissa down to the gulf at Itea is covered almost entirely by olives, an estimated million and a half trees, and the grove has been cultivated since antiquity, with ancient sources referring to sacred olives of the Delphic plain. Seen from the road down from Delphi it reads as a single silver-grey surface filling the whole basin between the mountains and the sea, and it is one of the classic views in Greece precisely because of that unbroken scale. The local variety, Amfissis or Konservolia, is grown mainly as a table olive, large and round, cured black or green, and the autumn harvest fills the villages with nets, ladders and trucks. Farm tracks let visitors walk in among the old trunks.

What you actually see

• The unbroken canopy - silver-grey olive cover filling the whole plain.
• The old trunks - hollowed, twisted trees of considerable age.
• The harvest - nets, poles and collection through late autumn.
• The Delphi viewpoint - the grove seen whole from the road above.

When to go

October to December for the harvest, when the groves are busy and mills are running; spring for green ground cover and wildflowers between the trees. Summer is hot and the plain hazy.

Honest expectations

This is farmland, not a park: there are no visitor facilities, marked trails or interpretation, and the tracks are private in places. Individual producers may welcome visits, but nothing is organised for tourists by default. The town of Amfissa is workaday.

Nearby

Delphi sits above on the mountain road; Itea and Galaxidi are on the gulf below.