What a week! From Lefkada to Meganisi, to Kalamos, Ithaka and finally Kefalonia in one week!

Lefkada

We have been to Nidri, Lefkada, before, but didn`t walk around, so it was time to do that before leaving.

On the beach side you have all the restaurants and in the next street you have all the shops.

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Meganisi

After some shopping and one icecream we hoist the anchor and sailed east to Meganisi. Here we found a bay on the north east side, Abelaki Bay. We first anchored and put the line ashore. It was a lot of other boats in the bay, hiding from the northerly wind.

There is a small jetty where you can stay for free. It was two swedish boats there when we arrived. You can ask at Minas restaurant if it is okay to stay there and they would be happy if you have dinner there (but it is not necessary)

In the evening we decided to have a walk around the peninsula. I always check on alltrails.com to see if there is any nice routes to walk.

We passed a farm with a lot of chicken and roosters, and a few kittens.

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Some viewpoints around. Here is the bay around the corner. A lot of boats there too

Okay road, but some places it was too much stones

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It was a lot of swell coming in that night so in the morning we decided to move the boat over to the jetty (one boat left early). After we came there the swedish boats left, and later that day a new boat arrived. It was a greek flagged boat, but the owner was norwegian and had norwegian guests.

The menu at Minas restaurant

In the morning we had a walk to the next town, Vathi, and the capital town, Katomeri, on the top of the hill.

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Vathi is a small nice town, but we didn`t stop there. From Vathi to Katomeri we saw on google maps it should be possible to walk a trail, or even two differents. It started nice….

But after some hundred metres it looked like this…. so we turned around and followed the main street instead.

A small nice church right before entering Katomeri

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A nice small town, but very quiet, no shops and almost no people to see. In the evening we had dinner at Minas where we had our boat. Full restaurant and nice food.

Kalamos

The next day we sailed to Porto Leone at the island Kalamos. We came early and all boats which was there last night left when we arrived. But after a while the bay was full again. We anchored at the east side of the bay and took lines ashore. There was a small beach but not very nice.

The next day we went ashore. In 1953 there was a huge earthquake in this area and all the buildings were destroide. They build up again the church later.

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All the people left from this place and now it is almost only ruins there.

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Unfortunately a guy has now bought a property here and wont let people come there. He has a jetty in front of the house and you are NOT welcome to stay there. We could hear he jelling at some people coming there before us, and they almost had to run away. We took the dinghy to the beach instead and walk from there. You don`t wanna buy a place like this if you wan`t to be alone!!

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Absolutely a nice place to stay, but this guy is not good for the bay!

Ithaki

After visiting that bay we sailed to Vathi (same name as the town in Meganisi) on the island Ithaka. We wanted to rent a car here so it was convinient to stay in the marina, and it was cheap. We paid 16 EUR pr night.

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Vathi is a beautiful town with a lot of nice buildings. Restaurants and shops along the seaside.

You maybe forget to walk the street behind, but don`t! It is so cozy!

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We found a rental car for the day after, and in the morning we were ready to explore the northern part of Ithaka. The woman at the rental company advised us to drive on the west side first and we wanted to listen to her. The road is high up in the hill and some places it can be a bit scary because it is many meters down to the sea. But a lot of nice views. We stopped first in Polis beach, near the town of Stavros.

And we had to have a stop in Stavros as well. Stavros is the main city in the north of Itaca, and are the commercial capital.

This is a reproduction of Odysseus Palace. They say this lay at Pilikata Hill, right north of Stavros.

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Odysseus, the king of Ithaka. Also knowned from Homers Poem.

The Byzantine church of the Saviour, right in the middle of the square

And if you don`t wan`t to go to church you can go behind the church and do some exercises.

A cosy small place

On a hill north on the island you will find Exogi. A spectacular place to visit. The best thing to do is to park the car in the bottom of the village and walk all the way up, but there were no place to park. We followed our plan and drove up to the church at the top and parked there.

Amazing blue colour

The church where we parked. I can`t tell you the name because it is only in greek on my map…

A beautiful view from the cementary

Our goal was to hike up to the monastery at the top of the hill. It is possible to drive all the way up, but we need to do some hiking when you are in a boat most of the time. And what a view from the trail!!

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The monastery of Panagia Eleousa. It was closed, but we could see some of it through the windows.

A beautiful place, as always! Are you looking for nice views? Look for a monastery or a church!

The clocktower. It was possible to go inside and take the stairs up to the clock

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The village of Exogi to the left

Just some meters from the church someone has build a pyramide. It was also some other things there, so maybe they have a plan. But no information about this.

On the same place as the pyramide

While Astor was driving from the church, I started to walk down to take some photos along the road.

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When we came down from Exogi we saw a lot of people walking along the road, and I saw on a map there should be some attractions, so we drove to see what it was.

Here is Mykensk Palace, where it says that Odysseus had his palace. Unfortunately I can see now there was much more to see (from other photos) But there is no signs or anything. No place to go without a guide. And the road around there… not for driving a car!

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The woman at the car rental advised us to go to the beaches on the northeast side (we asked for beaches to go for a swim). We found Kioni, a beautiful small bay with some restaurants and shops. But it is not easy to drive there, I was very happy I was not the driver…

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We stopped for lunch there, Astor had wish for a pancake and I also ordered one. I regretted that.. Its no good lunch…

The church in Kioni (I did tell you I love taking photos of churches??)

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We can see a lot of strange driving here, like this guy, cutting down the trees and then just put it on the scooter…

Many nice buildings, but also some building which need some renovations.

Our next stop was Anogi. On the way there I had to take a photo of the hill where we visit Exogi and the monastery.

Anogi is the highest and most remote village in Ithaki. We had to visit the church there, the Byzantine church of Panagia, with all the amazing paintings inside.

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There were a sign for “old town” and we wanted to explore that. But not much more information about what we were looking for. We found this church

and together with the church, this building, which was the prison

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It was not much to see and we met a locked fence. It is a huge area of ruins and here they could have some information, this could be an amazing place!

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Ithaka is a part of Unesco Global Geopark Ithaka and Kefalonia. I have tried to figure it out what this is, but no one can tell me. Anyone?

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Driving from Anogi forwards Vathy you will find an amazing viewpoint

Then we stopped at Kathara Monastery. We heard people talking so we found them and asked if we could have a look around, and we were welcome to do that!

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There were also a peacock, a white one

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A beautiful church, as always.

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Also an amazing view from the monastery. Vathi.

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You get the best view from the clock tower.

Before delivery the car, Astor wanted to have a swim, and we stopped at this nice beach close to Vathy

Vathy in the next morning, and we were ready to leave

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Kefalonia

We sailed from Vathy to Skala at Kefalonia, on the east coast. It was not much wind so we could anchor anywhere. Our plan was to rent a car in Skala and we had checked out the car rentals and it looked like it was many cars available. Astor took the dinghy to the village to check it out. Unfortunately no one had a car for us.

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So we decided to sail around the south coast and anchor somewhere, before sailing to Argostoli the day after. We anchored in a bay on the south west coast of the island. A nice sunset in the mountain, where we had a plan to hike the next day

The next day on the way to Argostoli

Argostoli is a nice town to visit. We decided to berth in the marina on the other side of the bridge. The marina is not operated, but you can stay there for free.

We stayed longside.

Still morning and we went over the bridge to find the car we rented, after calling to car rentals on the way in. We rented the car through Thalassa Tours and rent a car, and the people there were really nice!

The first thing was to do the hike to the highest mountain on the island, Ainos Oros, 1628 masl. We found the trail on the website alltrails.com. We found the sign for the trail and drove 300 meters to a parkingspot to park the car, and then walk back to the beginning of the trail. We hiked the last 350 high meters (around)

It was a beautiful trail, easy to walk and pritty soon we got amazing views

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The signs show you the right way, but you could easely see the trail.

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This reminds me of the alps…

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On the top we had lunch with this view!

There is a road all the way to the top, but we like better to follow trails. But this day we had a lot on our plan so we decided to take the road back to the car. Not much shorter, but easier.

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The parking spot, a nice playground for kids and families to have a picnic.

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From the mountain we drove down on the east side of the island, to Sami, before we drove to the west again. Here is one of the churches in Sami.

On the westcoast we stopped at Myrtos beach so Astor could have a swim. Beautiful place!

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I saw a photo on Instagram of Assos, so we had to go there. My plan was to hike up to the castle, but we saw that if we should have some sun in the bay we had to drop that. It startet to be late.