Wow! It's been a while. It's very busy work doing nothing. Well, not absolutely nothing, but our pace has certainly slowed. We did travel way back on Wednesday. I drove back over the mountains from Sami to the Airport and didn't get seriously lost along the way. Did manage to detour through a few small villages by the airport with seriously narrow winding streets, where I was amazed (terrified?) to see some big tour buses squeezing through--had to back up and hug a wall on the wrong side of the road once. But we got to the airport ahead of schedule and, though our flight was 25 minutes late arriving in Kefalonia (it started in Corfu), it only took about 5 minutes for boarding and was only 5 minutes late arriving in Zakynthos, (or Zante--seems there are 2 names for all Greek Islands). Took a taxi from the airport to our apartment, Villa Anna, pretty much right in the centre of Alykes, a little beach town on the northwest coast of the island that has a sister resort town, Alykanas, that is separated from it only by a small river and is just a short walk away. Our apartment is huge (could sleep 10!) and has a big wrap-around porch and is basically at the main intersection of Alykes, with literally 10 restaurants, and the beach, within a 3 minute walk. We only use 1 floor of the place. (It is also by far the cheapest place we have stayed on our trip).
Alykes is a quintessential beach town, with lots of small hotels and apartment rentals, catering mostly to Brits but somehow still maintaining its "Greekness". That is as opposed to neighbour Alykanas, which has much bigger hotels and seems much more British. The long beach in Alykes is really nice sand (unlike a lot of beaches on this trip) and is very shallow and sandy all the way out--you can walk out a hundred yards.
It was around 5pm when we arrived here on Wednesday and, once we dropped our bags, we headed straight to the beach, which as I said is 3 minute walk, and had a drink at one of the dozens of bars. Then, after perusing some menus, we ended up eating right across the street from our apartment at Deni's Diner, which doesn't sound very Greek but actually is, and did very good gyros and souvlaki pitas. Despite being right in the busiest part of town, our apartment is very quiet--very well sound-proofed, so we slept very well.
Thursday we went exploring over to Alykanas. You can walk along the beach, except for a brief inland detour to a foot bridge across the river. Alykanas just really didn't seem to have much to offer. The beach is not as nice as Alykes Beach and the big hotels seem to crowd the beach. And once you head in from the beach the town's main strip, which is much farther from the beach than Alykes, is much busier and "touristy". But we walked along it for a while checking out places to book a boat cruise. We then ended up heading to Costa's, a great spot just on the Alykanas side of the foot bridge, but really more part of Alykes (very Greek). We killed a few hours there eating, drinking and swimming. Later we had dinner at Porto Paradiso, a nice spot on the beach, but the calamari was a bit tough.
Friday morning we went for a walk around the big salt pond, which sits a couple of hundred yards behind the beach, and spent some time trying to find an open office to nail down our boat reservation for Saturday. The we spent most of the day on the beach, getting sunbeds at Asteria Taverna and eating lunch there, some very tasty pinsas (flatbreads). In the evening, we just went across the street to Deni's Diner and had some tomatoes and feta with generous quantities of olive oil, all soaked up with bread (as we learned to do on Kefalonia).
Today, Saturday, we went on a boat cruise the see Shipwreck Beach, where the remains of a 1980 smuggling ship lie (you can't go on the beach anymore), the Blue Caves, and to take 3 swimming stops in some truly spectacular coves. A very good 4 hour cruise--and there was even a bar on board! Unfortunately, my underwater camera seems to have sprung a leak and I had to finish the trip using my phone. Hopefully it will be OK when it dries out. When we got back to Alykes, just after 1pm, we headed to Porto Paradiso, which was the closest restaurant, and had some tasty mussels for lunch. Then home to clean up and nap and sort some pics.
2025-02-11