Kefalonia (V)

On our last day I was determined to go paddleboarding. I had seen the paddleboards on the rocks at our hotel on the day we arrived but for some reason waited until the last moment to take one out.

I’d only ever been paddleboarding on lakes in New England, but the ocean near our hotel was not particularly rough and it was really easy to navigate.

On our last day, we saw clouds for the first time (!). And although everyone at the hotel was like ‘I am sorry it’s such an awful day,’the clouds did not take away anything in our view.

Top Recommendations:

Our hotel! The Emelisse was a wonderful place to stay and had everything we wanted and needed.

Paddleboarding, just in general. To everyone at all opportunities.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. Definitely my favorite of the books I read while I was away, but admittedly not much of beach read.

Pictures

Paddle boarding from the rocks at the hotel.

The view from our hotel, even beautiful with clouds.

Kefalonia (IV)

On Thursday, we tried and failed to see Myrtos beach, one of Kefalonia’s sandy beaches that is supposedly one of the most photographed beaches in the world. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos!

We drove down to the town of Assos only to find the road to Myrtos was closed. So we ended up visiting Assos, even though we hadn’t planned on it.

Assos is a beautiful town next to a castle on a peninsula that sticks out into the ocean. I am doing a bad job of describing it, but the pictures below should help. The town was quiet and the water was as beautiful and as clear as on our side of Island.

After we finished wandering through Assos we tried again to get to Myrtos (the long way round), but when we got there found the beach was closed due to falling rocks. So we ended up heading to a little stone beach around the corner from To Pefko, where we had a great lunch.

Pictures

This is as close to Myrtos as we got! It’s right around the corner…

Assos

A couple fixer-uppers right in the middle of town!

Beautiful Assos

Our second choice beach but still not too bad.

 

Kefalonia (II)

For months before we left J talked about renting a boat. And on Tuesday, we rented a boat to cruise around Kefalonia and over to Ithaca. Although our instructions from the boat owner were minimal, it was surprisingly easy. We had a few stressful moments, mostly parking related, but we got ourselves and the boat back in one piece.

At first we headed down the coast of Kefalonia but then cruised across to Ithaca, where we found ourselves on Polis beach. We put down our anchor, hoped for the best, and jumped off the boat to find lunch. On the beach, there was a sign about the Loizos caves. The caves are now underwater, but they were the site of an ancient temple. I loved finding even the sign because my dad always speaks fondly about happening upon ancient culture in Greece. And there it was!

There was also a beach cafe, where we ordered calamari, chicken souvlaki and greek salad. Everything was great (sorry I have no idea what the name of the cafe was), but we left shortly after lunch to see more of the islands from the water.

After lunch we went back across to Kefalonia and found a quiet inlet with the bluest water. We spent our last hour or so there and only almost ran into an Italian mega-yacht once (ok, maybe twice), but the important thing is that we didn’t.

Pictures:

If Andrew Wyeth ever went to Greece, he would have painted this island.

Ithaca

Polis beach, where we had lunch

A fisherman

 

Kefalonia (I)

Kefalonia, Greece

July 2014

Me and J

1 Week away

By Thomas Cook

Stayed at The Emelisse Hotel (highly recommend)

What I read:

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P by Adelle Waldman, The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth, PORTER Magazine

The gist of it:

J asked me earlier this year if we could have a week of vacation this summer, which was just relaxing. Staying in one hot place and enjoying doing very little! I tend to plan vacations with lots of activities, but I am so glad we went to Greece for a very low key week.

We stayed on the island of Kefalonia in the Ionian sea. Our hotel was around the corner from the town of Fiskardo and looked out over the neighboring islands Ithaca and Lefkada.

The view from the hotel was constantly changing but always beautiful. The hotel itself was also just what we wanted and I would recommend it to everyone. The hotel was on top of cliffs, which you could swim off of into the sea and there was also a stony beach around the corner.

Every night for dinner we headed into Fiskardo, which had a selection of restaurants and a constantly changing fleet of fishing boats and mega-yachts. The food at the hotel was great and in Fiskardo we had particularly good meals at Elli’s, Roula’s Grill House and Lord Nelson. Lord Nelson served Thai food but it was actually a nice change later in the week.

Pictures:

These are mostly to give you a feel for the hotel, the beach around the corner and Fiskardo.

Our dweeby rent a car, which I adored for it’s horrible golden color, but I think J resented the distinct lack of acceleration.

The view from our hotel – it never got old.

The rocks below our hotel which you could swim off of

The hotel pool (instagram filtered)

After all those years of swim team, all I have to show for it is this dive.

Emplysi Beach

Yes, my bikini has fringe!

Fiskardo