Parnassus

Parnassus National Park was established in 1938 and is, along with Olympus, one of the first two national parks in Greece; for several decades they were the only ones in the country. It protects some 36 km² of the massif of the same name, in central Greece, whose main summits rise above 2,400 metres: Liakoura, or Parnassós, at 2,457, Tsarkos at 2,416 and Gerontóvrachos at 2,396.

The reason for its declaration was in part defensive: in those years bauxite mining had spread through the area and the administration recognised the need to protect its biodiversity. The vegetation is dominated by Cephalonian fir and Greek fir, with junipers and scrub among which grows the rare Daphne jasminea, with its purple flowers.

Parnassus is one of the mountains with the greatest symbolic charge in European culture: in Greek mythology it was the home of the Muses and was sacred to Apollo and Dionysus, and on its southern slope stands the sanctuary of Delphi, seat of the most influential oracle of the ancient world, today a World Heritage Site as a cultural property in its own right. The coexistence of the park with the ski resort installed on its slopes, built at the time without an environmental impact assessment, has been and remains the main management problem.