A tour of the Island
23rd June 2010
When we first arrived in Kefalonia Aaron decided that during one of his once weekly days off from volunteering with the Katelious group he wanted to hike to the top of the highest mountain on the island, Mt Aenos standing at over 1600m above sea level. Everyone who knows me will know how much I enjoy hiking, but seeing as we do an awful lot of walking on our 'work' days the prospect of wanting to do something even more strenuous in our spare time seemed crazy to me! During our first two weeks in Kefalonia Aaron didn't have a map and so fortunately didn't risk the trip. On his third day off he kayaked about 20km to Zakinthos Island with Manu and Marcus. By the fourth week the impossible finally happened...Aaron managed to tire himself out and spent most of his day off sleeping! On my first day off I got the bus with Elina who's from Finland, to Argostoli, the capital of the island. There we saw the picturesque, colourful harbour and spent most of the morning shopping before catching the last bus back at 2pm. For my other rest days I mostly relaxed, snorkelled, did washing and used the internet and didn't venture further than the neighbouring town of Skala. So today for our fifth (and second to last) day off Aaron and I took the leisurely pursuit of an Island bus tour in order to finally see some more of the island.
At 8am as we were welcomed aboard the tour bus by our very short and round, English, tour operator, Esme, who was very jolly and also turned out to be incredibly informative. It felt strange to be among the tourists today rather than informing them about the endangered loggerhead sea turtles. The views from the bus of the mountains and coast were fascinating. The first stop of the tour was some mid-morning wine tasting at a wine factory! We sampled five delicious wines, but restrained ourselves from buying any, in favour of our budgetary supply of 3 Euro plastic bottles purchased in Katelious.
Next we were in for underground experiences at Drogorahti cave and Melissani lake. As we descended into Drogorahti cave it began to drizzle. Large drops of water splashed onto us and brought a fresh aroma of the plants that were clinging to the edge of the entrance. Inside the cave the stalactites and stalagmites were lit up dramatically in a flood of bright yellow and amber. I could hear the faint echo of lowered voices and shoes tapping on the path. The sound must be amazing when they hold concerts here. At Melissani lake we saw water that was a much deeper and brighter blue than I have ever seen before and I've heard it looks even brighter on a sunny day. I tried dipping my whole hand into the cool water and just as Esme predicted the water tasted salty. The lake is fed by sea water from the other side of the island. The guide who rowed
our boat around the lake was very enthusiastic to tell us in limited English, the depth of the water and to take our photos, but was not able to provide any other information. Luckily our bus tour guide more than compensated for the lack of guide books and told us about the experiments they ran to identify where the water can from.
For lunch we stopped in Fiskardo on the northern most point of the island. This is the only town on the island were Venetian buildings survived the earthquake. The word 'Venetian' conjured up images of a beautiful, romantic style to me, but disappointingly they weren't. However the harbour in Fiskardo was pretty and we found a maritime museum that was s
imilar to our environmental centre in Katelious. The museum was interesting and a little bigger than ours. I hoped we would see a friendly volunteer we could exchange experiences with, but no-one appeared.
Our last stop for the day was at Assoss. I thought this was one of the most beautiful places on the Island (after Mounda beach of course!) There was something very charming about the landscape. A castle sat on top of a very large hill, which was almost and island itself as it was only connected to Kefalonia by a thin strip of land. We didn't have time to visit the castle, but we did have an amazing view overlooking Assoss as the bus winded it's way up the twisting road on the much larger hill of the mainland, as we began our journey back south.
When we first arrived in Kefalonia Aaron decided that during one of his once weekly days off from volunteering with the Katelious group he wanted to hike to the top of the highest mountain on the island, Mt Aenos standing at over 1600m above sea level. Everyone who knows me will know how much I enjoy hiking, but seeing as we do an awful lot of walking on our 'work' days the prospect of wanting to do something even more strenuous in our spare time seemed crazy to me! During our first two weeks in Kefalonia Aaron didn't have a map and so fortunately didn't risk the trip. On his third day off he kayaked about 20km to Zakinthos Island with Manu and Marcus. By the fourth week the impossible finally happened...Aaron managed to tire himself out and spent most of his day off sleeping! On my first day off I got the bus with Elina who's from Finland, to Argostoli, the capital of the island. There we saw the picturesque, colourful harbour and spent most of the morning shopping before catching the last bus back at 2pm. For my other rest days I mostly relaxed, snorkelled, did washing and used the internet and didn't venture further than the neighbouring town of Skala. So today for our fifth (and second to last) day off Aaron and I took the leisurely pursuit of an Island bus tour in order to finally see some more of the island.
At 8am as we were welcomed aboard the tour bus by our very short and round, English, tour operator, Esme, who was very jolly and also turned out to be incredibly informative. It felt strange to be among the tourists today rather than informing them about the endangered loggerhead sea turtles. The views from the bus of the mountains and coast were fascinating. The first stop of the tour was some mid-morning wine tasting at a wine factory! We sampled five delicious wines, but restrained ourselves from buying any, in favour of our budgetary supply of 3 Euro plastic bottles purchased in Katelious.
Next we were in for underground experiences at Drogorahti cave and Melissani lake. As we descended into Drogorahti cave it began to drizzle. Large drops of water splashed onto us and brought a fresh aroma of the plants that were clinging to the edge of the entrance. Inside the cave the stalactites and stalagmites were lit up dramatically in a flood of bright yellow and amber. I could hear the faint echo of lowered voices and shoes tapping on the path. The sound must be amazing when they hold concerts here. At Melissani lake we saw water that was a much deeper and brighter blue than I have ever seen before and I've heard it looks even brighter on a sunny day. I tried dipping my whole hand into the cool water and just as Esme predicted the water tasted salty. The lake is fed by sea water from the other side of the island. The guide who rowed
our boat around the lake was very enthusiastic to tell us in limited English, the depth of the water and to take our photos, but was not able to provide any other information. Luckily our bus tour guide more than compensated for the lack of guide books and told us about the experiments they ran to identify where the water can from.For lunch we stopped in Fiskardo on the northern most point of the island. This is the only town on the island were Venetian buildings survived the earthquake. The word 'Venetian' conjured up images of a beautiful, romantic style to me, but disappointingly they weren't. However the harbour in Fiskardo was pretty and we found a maritime museum that was s
imilar to our environmental centre in Katelious. The museum was interesting and a little bigger than ours. I hoped we would see a friendly volunteer we could exchange experiences with, but no-one appeared.Our last stop for the day was at Assoss. I thought this was one of the most beautiful places on the Island (after Mounda beach of course!) There was something very charming about the landscape. A castle sat on top of a very large hill, which was almost and island itself as it was only connected to Kefalonia by a thin strip of land. We didn't have time to visit the castle, but we did have an amazing view overlooking Assoss as the bus winded it's way up the twisting road on the much larger hill of the mainland, as we began our journey back south.
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