My Favourite Pictures of the Greek Islands – 23

Fiskardo, Kefalonia

As Fiskardo is the only place that escaped the 1953 earthquake damage it is consequently the only village to see examples of the old Venetian architecture.  The buildings around the harbour however had had a very heavy makeover and didn’t feel especially genuine but those in the back streets leading off the harbour were much more authentic.

The waterfront was awash with gaily-painted houses and the narrow streets away from the cobbled sea front were lined with tourist trinket shops and all-in-all Fiskardo felt more up-market than the other villages that we had visited.  To go with this impression also went the prices and a simple round of drinks at a waterside bar cost considerably more drachmas than we had become accustomed to spending.  We watched the fancy boats coming in and out of the bay and the harbour and then as Fiskardo is only quite a small place and it was getting crowded we left and headed back down the twisting coast road again through the rugged wilderness of the north-west coast and towards our intended destination of Assos.

Read the full story…

 

Kefalonia, Fiskardo and Assos

The north part of Kefalonia is the most wild and rugged and at the very northern tip is the town of Fiskardo which was the only place on the island that wasn’t flattened by the earthquake.  We set off straight after breakfast and after by-passing Argostoli drove through the village of Farsa, which was desperately unremarkable and would have been completely unrecognisable to poor old Captain Corelli.

Read the full story…

Kefalonia, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Like Argostoli, Sami has as long cement-paved seafront promenade broken by a succession of fairly pleasant pavement tavernas where we sat by one of the principal film sets and watched painted fishing boats bobbing about  in the harbour.

All of the stars of the film were staying in Sami and as we enjoyed lunch heads were turning as man strolled along the front and selected a table at an adjacent taverna and began to study the menu.  It turned out to be the actor John Hurt who we were told was in the habit of just popping into the village in this unselfconscious way in between filming.  I looked out for Penelope Cruz but there was no sign of her and the bar staff said that Nicolas Cage wasn’t very friendly either.

Read the full story…

Kefalonia, Argostoli

After the day of inactivity yesterday we decided today to get out of the hotel and see some more of the island so after breakfast we set off for the capital, Argostoli, just a short distance away.  We could have caught a bus but took the easier option of a taxi instead for the short ten minute ride to town where we were dropped off at the deserted main square.

Argostoli, it has to be said, was an immediate disappointment. Old photographs show that it was once bursting with stylish Venetian mansions, leafy squares and elegant bell towers, but first the Germans dropped incendiary bombs on it during World War Two and then an earthquake in 1953 reduced what was left to a wasteland of rubble and only two houses and a bridge survived.

Read the full story…