Preveza: Balconies, Tavernas and a Lunch Worth Remembering

Our trip finally drew to an end here in Preveza. Kefalonia, where we’d begun three weeks ago, followed by Ithaca, Meganisi and Lefkada all seemed so long ago. Here are a few last reflections on our stay in Preveza

Preveza Tavernas

When we arrived in Preveza, Ioannis had sent us a list of tavernas that he recommended. We didn’t get to visit them all, but here are a couple we did and really liked. Which I guess is all of them.

Ventura Taverna is set amongst the pretty, bougainvillaea-shaded alleyways in the old town. Ioannis had told us that the owner was an interesting man who’d spent much of his life involved in the music scene. And he was an interesting man. And more than that, the food was exceptional.

Taverna Psatha was another one that we really liked. In fact, we went there a couple of times. The taverna doesn’t have a menu, but you are invited inside to see what dishes have been cooked that day. There was something nostalgic about this type of place, and it harks back to those early days of backpacking around Greece – quite a rarity nowadays.

Another highly recommended taverna is Restaurant Ionio in Pantokratoros, just around the headland towards Mitikas. Lovely people and delicious food. The tavernas just below the Avra Hotel were also top notch – good traditional Greek Fayre.

You don’t have to walk too far to find good food in Preveza and if you have a sweet tooth, you will find many gelaterias and patisseries in and around the harbourfront and old town.

The Balcony

The Avra Hotel was simple accommodation, but the location was superb. Our balcony turned out to be one of the better decisions of the stay. At golden hour, a trail of light cut straight across the Ambracian Gulf towards the Aktio promontory, the mountains behind it stacked in silhouette against a sky that had gone the colour of old brass. Below us, the fishing boats were still moored, the last of the day’s customers picking over the catch. Café umbrellas, a moped, a car parked at an angle. Ordinary harbour life, lit up like a painting.

In the mornings, the fishermen returned and moored directly below the hotel. While they sorted their catch and mended their nets, locals came down to buy. It was a working harbour doing what working harbours do, and watching it from above felt like being given a window into the daily rhythm of the town rather than the tourist version of it.

Just a bit further down was a marina lined with yachts. Preveza is a well-established destination for yacht charters around the Ionians, and the boats moored there reflected that. Just beyond the marina, the harbour proper, a destination for merchant shipping, fully functional and going about its business.

One afternoon we watched the Bestekar enter the harbour. A large cargo ship, flying the flag of Barbados, stacked with what appeared to be underground water pipes. What fascinated me the most was the pilot boat. Tiny in comparison to the vessel it was guiding through the channel. Once at the main harbour, it darted from side to side and end to end of the Bestekar to ensure it moored correctly. Amongst the flashy yachts, this small boat, going about its unglamorous but essential work for me, was the star of the show.

Later that evening, from the same balcony, we heard chanting before we saw anything. Then, coming along the harbour front from the direction of the town, an organised march. People protesting against the atrocities happening in Gaza. It moved along the waterfront and continued past. Thank you, Preveza.

The day before we were due to fly home, Ioannis and Angeliki invited us to join them at the beach club at Mitikas Beach. The weather was showery, and the water looked cold, but good company was all we needed. We sat, we talked, we watched the rain and Ioannis swam regardless.

Afterwards, back to their home, where we were joined by Carol, a very good friend of Ioannis and Angeliki. A nurse from the United States who had served alongside Ioannis in Somalia and who also turned out to be an avid fan of Greece in her own right. Angeliki had cooked Papoutsakia and Greek salad. The conversation ranged widely, as you can imagine when the people around a table consisted of two Greeks, one American, one Egyptian and a Brit.

I have been asked what keeps bringing me back to Greece, year after year. There are plenty of answers. The culture, the landscape, the history, the light. But the truest answer is simpler than any of that. It is the people. Not the version of hospitality that comes with a price attached, but the kind that appears in an invitation to someone’s home, in a meal cooked for guests, in friends who know the mountain roads and the monastery caves and the stone bridges and the cliff-top monuments, and who want to share all of it.

That is why we travel. Not to collect places, but in the words of Epirus Traveller – it’s to make your lifetime memories.

Epirus Traveller

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