We said goodbye to Lefkada by enjoying a pizza at the harbour as we felt like a change from Greek food. We washed it down with not one, but two types of rose as the waiter assured us we would like the sweet kind but we ended up preferring the dry - to find this out we ordered a carafe of each of course!
Arriving in Kefalonia I was pleasantly surprised - Although easy to get to, it didn't feel touristy at all. We had discovered by this point that our GPS was against us, always leading us on silly routes or simply having meltdowns. Due to this I ended up dubbing our intrepid explorer of a car (it handled itself admirably on every off-road track we took it on) Ulysses, and our obstinate GPS Circe, as she clearly didn't want us getting where we wanted to go! (And certainly not to Ithaca!)
Arriving in the port town of Sami, we had a quick look around and my eye was caught by this lovely old wagon! We then decided to head up into Kefalonia, and return to Sami later as we would need to go back there to catch our next ferry anyway.
I had heard of a winery high up in the mountains of Kefalonia and so of course we decided to check it out, situated in the Omala valley, the drive was worth it just for the views. As we wound our way up the mountains, the view getting ever better, the air became more and more perfumed until I finally realised the purple flowers that dotted the landscape was wild thyme. I had never seen it growing in such quantities, and the smell was spectacular, as was the surrounding architecture of the island.
The Cooperative of Robola Producers of Kefalonia was a lovely winery made up of local growers who had banded together to be able to have the top of the range equipment needed to produce top quality wine and in larger quantities than they otherwise would have been able to. We were given a free tour of the factory, including an explanation on the processes which was really interesting as they had a production line where every machine did something different, rinsing the bottles with water, then sterilising them, then pouring in the wine, corking the bottles, stamping them, adding the plastic around the corks and then the labels - all of this done by machines with the ability to process two thousand bottles an hour!! After this we were given a tasting as well and left with many more bottles to enjoy on our way.
Our next stop was to Agios Georgios Kastro, a Venetian castle dating back to the 1500s and once the capital of Kefalonia. It's roots were actually far older, as it had begun as a Byzantine castle in the 11th century, however most of what can be seen today was built by the Venetians when they took it over from the Turks with the help of the Spanish and the Kefalonians.
Apparently once upon a time a road connected this castle to Argostoli (Kefalonia's current capital) which was entirely invisible from the sea so that it couldn't be spotted by passing pirate ships!
There was very little sign posting and almost no-one around, so we wandered in peace. Although the parts we could see have been nicely preserved and cleaned, apparently very little else has been done in the way of archaeological excavation.
The site was lovely, however there was no shade and temperatures were in the 40s so after a good wander, we decided it was time to rest.
Feeling extremely hot and sweaty from our explorations we descended into the village sitting just below the castle and happily retired to the shade, ordering cold beers and some delicious looking lunch.
As the island was so large, we decided to cover the northern part on our way back as we had to pass back through Kefalonia from Ithaca. Due to this we spent most of our time exploring the south, and it was here we found two of the most known beaches on the island. The first, named Xi and known for its reddish sand and temperate waters was a terrible let-down as it had become a typical tourist resort, full of loud music and throngs of people. However our attempt the next day was far more successful, as it was much harder to get to.
Petani Beach was just unbelievably beautiful, probably the most stunning beach I've ever been to, and I long to go back one day. Crystal clear water, fine white pebbles, water dropping away steeply from white cliffs into azure water. Snorkeling would have been amazing here, and a little restaurant right by the beach would have been perfect for lunch. It was absolute paradise but alas, we had a ferry to catch and no time for anything but a quick dip.
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