Cephalonia Cephalonia is one of many Greek islands that boasts a peculiar blend of nature’ and history that has resulted in a special place. So special, in fact, that Cephalonia likes to think of itself as “the island of wonders,” a place where many unexpected natural phenomena occur. But visitors need not concern themselves with anything “un-natural.” What will appeal is the natural splendour of the island, with its rugged slopes coming right down to the sea, well-forested slopes, too, due to the climate the island enjoys. Cephalonia also boasts of the highest peak of all the Ionian Islands, Mt. Ainos (some 1630 meters).
Cephalonia may be approached by several routes. It is linked by ship to the other Ionian Islands as well as to the mainland; it also enjoys a direct air link to Athens. There are lots of good roads on the island itself with plenty of hotels and restaurants around the island. For Cephalonia is a large island – 737 square kms – larger than Corfu, although its population is far less, only some 30,000. It is also less “developed” than Corfu, so it offers plenty of space for visitors to move around on their own.
Not that Cephalonia hasn’t had its own share of human works. There was a prominent settlement here in the Mycenaean Age: tombs including one like those at Mycenae have been found at Masarakata. The islanders show up in Homer as the Cephalians, “people of the headland,” probably an allusion to the great peak of the island, Mt. Ainos. In the next great era, Cephalonia was colonized like Corfu by Corinth but also sided with Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Cephalonia ended up within the Roman realm, and then in the Middle Ages was taken over by the Normans from Sicily under Robert Guiscard. It experienced the same sequence of conquerors as the other Ionian Islands – Italians, Turks, Venetians, French and British – and then took the lead in trying to overthrow the British in 1848 but had to wait until the British handed them over to Greece in 1864. During 1823-24, by the way, Lord Byron lived on Cephalonia and worked on his Don Juan.
Sami, the small port at which most visitors enter Cephalonia, is located at the centre of the eastern coast. It is nothing special as Greek port towns go, but it is worth knowing that it was in this bay that Don John of Austria gathered the great fleet that defeated the Turks in 1571 at Lepanto. In 189 BC, when the Romans were taking over the Ionian Islands, the people of Sami forced the Romans to support a long siege; in revenge, the Romans sacked the city and sold its citizens into slavery. The ruins of ancient Sami lie above and north of present-day Sami; although fairly extensive walls survive, they will not excite most visitors. At the edge of Sami, however, is a later Roman bath with a mosaic floor.
Far more appealing to most visitors are the two caves that are situated only a few km west of Sami. The first is known as Lake Melissani because the cave’s most remarkable feature is a lake now exposed to light and having translucent-blue water; a boat takes one into the cave (for a fee). Only about 2 km down the road is the Cave of Drogorati; its feature is a great central cavern with dramatic stalagmites and unusual acoustics. (An admission is also charged for entering this cave.)
The actual capital of Cephalonia is Argostoli, a city of some 8,000 located over on the west coast. It sits on an inlet and is approached by a causeway over a bridge (built by the British in 1813). Although Argostoli has the island’s airport nearby, most visitors will come overland from Sami, passing enrooted the Pass of Agrapidiaes (from which a turnoff leads up to Mt. Ainos), At Frangata, a turn leads to the Convent of Ayios Gerasimos, the patron saint of Cephalonia.
Argostoli is a lovely small city, priding itself on its cathedral, its museum with archaeological finds from the island, and its Corgialinios Library with a collection of folk art and handicrafts. Nearby are two fine beaches, Plati Yialos and Makri Yialos. On the edge of Argostoli are the ruins of Kranioi, one of the four ancient towns of Cephalonia; there are some remains of a small temple and altar but the ones that will surprise most visitors are the ambitious walls. Some 3 km north of Argostoli, on a peninsula, is the Katavothres, a locale where sea water surges over the land and then vanishes into subterranean tunnels; it is claimed that this water resurfaces at Lake Melissani in the cave outside Sami.
Another interesting excursion from Argostoli is to San Giorgio, the capital of Cephalonia under the Venetians but now not much more than an abandoned citadel, the Castle of St. George; all but demolished in an earthquake in 1636, its inhabitants moved down and settled at the port that would become Argostoli. Its location, some 8 km. above Argostoli, is still dramatic and enough remains to give some sense of what a grand place it must have been – the moat, the great bastions, churches, prison cells, all the reminders of how the Venetians once ruled so much of Greece.
Continuing on the same route would bring you to the village of Peratata, with its Convent of Ayios Andreas, known for its relics of St. Andrew as well as frescoes and icons. Beyond the Convent is the Monastery of Sission, its name said to be derived from Assissi in Italy, for the monastery was somehow associated with St. Francis of Assissi. Below it is the fine Afratos Beach.
Continuing still further south, you pass the Mycenaean necropolis of Masarakata, while 2 km beyond this is the settlement of Metaxata where Byron lived (1823-24): the house is gone but the place is marked by a plaque. Another 2 km brings you to Lakithra, the capital of this region, known for its agricultural produce. Ancient rock-carved silos attest to the fact that the region must have long been productive.
One place that increasing numbers of visitors to Cephalonia are finding their way to is the little port of Fiscardo on the northern coast. Because of its isolation, it was pretty much left on its own and thus survived as a sort of medieval town. Now, though, it has been “discovered.” The Greek government has restored some of the old Venetian houses and rents them; this has led to the growth of restaurants and shops, and these in turn have attracted yachts from all over the Mediterranean so that a full-service marina has developed here. Fiscardo’s charms have thus become• somewhat self-conscious in recent years, and many people might prefer another nearby port-village, Assos, less developed than Fiscardo but with some of the vestiges of an older time; its most remarkable feature is the Venetian castle on a promontory.
Then there is Lixouri, on the peninsula that hangs off the north-western corner of Cephalonia. Lixouri is, in fact, the second largest town of Cephalonia – some 8000 inhabitants but does not have that much to offer the tourist. Out on this peninsula, known as Paliki, is a fine beach belonging to the Monastery of Kepouria. Just offshore from Lixouri, also, is a huge rock, the Kounopetra that appears to move endlessly back and forth in the sea.
At the very opposite corner of the island, on the south-eastern tip, is the town of Skala; its ruined Byzantine church of Ayios Athanasios sits over the remains of a Roman villa’s mosaics (dated to about the 2nd century AD); Skala also has remains of a 6th-century BC temple. Nearby is the village of Markopoulos, small snakes with black cross-like markings appear in a church only on August 15, Assumption Day.
