The Dance of Zalongo had been on my list for years. Getting there involved 410 steps, a long-standing battle with vertigo and a friend who would have called me something unrepeatable if I had tried to back out. What happened at the top was not what I had prepared myself for. Not the climb, not the monument, and certainly not the moment when two people began to sing.
Some days of travel arrange themselves neatly around a guidebook itinerary. Others are shaped entirely by someone who knows the place better than any guidebook could. Our friend Ioannis from Epirus Traveller took us from Preveza into the mountains of Tzoumerka for a day that covered a Roman aqueduct, a wax museum unlike anything I have seen before, a monastery built into a cliff face, a village of silversmiths, and a stone bridge over a turquoise river. I am not good with bridges. I crossed it anyway.
Most people walking Preveza’s waterfront turn back before the town runs out. The walk around the tip of the headland takes a couple of hours, allowing for refreshment stops and general mooching. It passes an abandoned military camp, two fortresses built by Ali Pasha in the same year, and a stretch of coastline where the Battle of Actium was fought in 31 BC. The Pantokratoras Fortress at the far end had its doors open. We went in.
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Nidri promised boat trips. Most of them went to beaches. The MS Christina went somewhere more interesting: Kastos and Kalamos, two small islands between Lefkada and Ithaca that most visitors to the Ionians never reach. A wartime submarine cave, a surprisingly ornate church on an island of forty people, a poet’s island you can only look at from the water, and a close pass of Skorpios. Not bad for a day that almost did not happen.
Nidri in bad weather is not somewhere to linger. So we caught the bus into Lefkada Town, crossed a bridge that swings open for passing yachts, spent the best part of two hours inside a medieval fort that most people drive straight past, and then got happily lost in a town built to survive earthquakes. Not a bad day for a rainy Tuesday.
Nidri was never an intentional destination. It was the means to one. Four nights on Lefkada’s busiest harbour front, in a town that knows exactly what it is for — and a walk inland to a waterfall that most people arriving off the ferry never find.
With 7 crossings between Meganisi and Nidri running from early doors until 1830 every day, we had time to go and visit Vathy before leaving for Lefkada. I messaged our host and asked if it would be OK to leave our cases in the apartment and he replied in the affirmative. If they should get…
Before returning to the apartment to pack, we collared a taxi driver in Vathy’s main square and arranged for him to take us to the port the following morning. After completing the tedious deed of re-packing, we sat on the balcony soaking up the view over Vathy for one last time. Tonight, the town was…
Today we have arranged a tour of the north of the island booked with Ithaca Travel. After grabbing a bougatsa from the bakery, we made our way to the office to wait for our guide. Stefania looked a little flustered that morning. It was almost like she’d forgotten we’d booked a tour, even though it…
Sunday announced itself with the pealing of bells from across the bay. As soon as a set of chimes from one church ended, another from another direction began. I’d already lost track of the days, but now there was no mistake that the day of worship had arrived. The warm egg-yolk yellow light from the…
No sooner had we unpacked than we were out and ready to explore Vathy. We began by taking an alley one row behind the waterfront, lined with old stone houses. Brightly coloured rugs hung from balconies, gently airing in the breeze. There is just the right mixture of patina and decay, which, of course, adds…
