Around Aedipsos Lichada (West)
To the west of Loutra Aedipsou, pushing deep into the Malian Gulf, stretches the tranquil Lichada peninsula, dense with pines and olive groves which clad the headland’s graceful summit of Xerosouvala (738m). The mountain and its offshore islets are associated in myth with the hapless serv ant, Lichas, who delivered the Shirt of Nessus to Hercules and was, for his service, hurled down into the sea here by the hero (Ovid, Metamorphoses IX, 211). The two largest settlements of Gialtra (14km), in the east, and Lichada (29km), towards the western point, both have old centres with pleasing stone houses and extensive views from their high positions. Gialtra has a harbour on the shore below with its own therapeutic springs by the sea—Loutra Gialtron. The water is of milder temperature than at Aedipsos (39Β°–42Β°C); there are a series of bathing huts, beyond which the water flows out eventually onto the beach. From Lichada the road leads down to Cape Kinaion (33.5km)— a beautiful spot, popular for bathing, with the islets and the sweep of the Phthiotian and Thessalian shores in front. Little remains of the temple of Zeus Kinaios which stood to the north of here, other than an eroded piece of frieze lying beside the church of SS. Helen and Constantine which stands by the edge of the road back to Aghios Giorgios from the cape. There has been speculation as to the site near this cape of Ancient Dios, mentioned by Homer (Iliad II, 538) as having ‘a steep citadel’.
Euboea Island, Greece