Fiscardo, Kefalonia

Fiscardo harbour and fishing boat

In May 2006 we had a week's holiday in Fiscardo, at one of the three Martini's Villas just outside the village. It was a very quiet location, fairly elevated, with lovely views of the sea and Ithaca beyond. This was the pool, looking up towards the villas.

An early evening view from the terrace.

On our first walk we took the road south towards Foki Beach. There once used to be seals here, and this is a lovely location; a small beach shaded by olive trees, and walks through glades of oak and cypress trees with caves along the shore.

Looking out to sea from Foki beach.

Walking through the forest along the shore of Foki beach.

The footpath to Foki beach is one of the ones excellently described in the booklet "Let's go ... Fiscardo's area" available from the Museum in the town run by fnec, Fiscardo's Nautical and Environmental Club, a team of multi-national volunteers running a non-profit making organisation promoting and protecting the natural environment of Erissos, the northern peninsular of Kefalonia. The walk was made all the more enjoyable by a call at the friendly taverna, where we had the best Kefallonian meat pie, and of course a few beers!

Our second short walk took us along the road past the small pebbley beach of Fiscardo into the town and along the harbour out to Nicholas Taverna on the north side of the bay.

Nicholas Taverna. From there we carried on through the cool pine woods by the rocky coastline, shortly arriving at Fiscardo's old Venetian lighthouse, dated between the 16th and the 18th century.

This "pepperpot" lighthouse has an old house adjacent, which has until fairly recently been lived in. A little further along there is the new lighthouse built during the British occupation, whose light shines nightly every three seconds.

Near the lighthouses there are the ruins of an old Byzantine church, dated sometime between the 6th and 12th centuries. Excavation of the site has just been started. We finished the short walk there, returning to the town, and our villa.

From there we saw the 4.30pm ferry leaving Fiscardo returning to Lefkas, passing the headland with both lighthouses visible.

For our long walk, we followed the instructions in fnec's booklet, and after reaching the lighthouses and ruined church as before, set off along the rocky coastline towards Emblisi. This is quite a busy beach due to there being a large hotel situated above it. From the northern part of the beach we followed the clearly marked out footpath up some rocky steps through woodland for some distance. The bird song and pleasant shade are evocative of English walks.

Slowly we descended through the woodland to the very quiet beach at Kimilia and its crystal clear waters where we were to dive another day. From here we climbed steeply through the Cypresses for 15 minutes or so arriving near the fnec stables. This is where volunteers care for the horses used in forest fire protection patrols and rescues. From here we walked through woods of evergreen oaks, cypress and strawberry trees to Antipata.

The lovely church at Antipata. From Antipata were we going to continue to Dafnoudi beach, visiting the German artillery bunkers, but being somewhat weary at this stage we settled for leaving Antipata for a short distance to see the house where the pilot of the Bristol Beaufighter brought down nearby during the war was imprisoned. Some of the wreckage of this plane are on show at the museum in Fiscardo, with the interesting story of the attempts made to make contact with the people involved. Retracing our steps to Antipata we returned to Fiscardo by the more direct route, along the road.

This is the museum, well worth a visit, lots of information about marine life in the area, dolphin sightings, history of Fiscardo and much more. You would find out more from their website, www.fnec.gr It is well worth a visit if you're looking for information about Fiscardo.

From the museum you can walk down one of several sets of steps towards the harbour and the many tavernas and shops there.

The Church bells.

A view of the town from across the harbour.

Well, this was one of the boutiques, but after a while shopping makes you thirsty ...! This is Tassia's restaurant.

Strolling around the harbour frontage we saw many boats, lots of privately owned yachts and the daily ferries arriving from other ports. Also moored there was the boat Neptune III that we were to sail on later on a "Discover Scuba Diving" day run by fnec.

This was the boat we went out on to do our scuba-diving!

This isn't us, but we did actually go diving, off the Neptune III, to a depth of around 6 m exploring the sea bed at Kimilia bay. As complete novices we were expertly guided by Cedric Georges a fnec volunteer, who showed us some specimens of the bivalve pinna nobilis and the eel grass posidonia oceania.

After the dive, with Cedric.

After a couple of days just relaxing (more beers!)it was time to return home!

On the journey to the airport south of Argostoli we stopped to see the view of Assos, a village clinging to a tiny isthmus leading to a large rock with the remains of a Venetian fortress latterly used as a prison.

And we were able to catch a glimpse of the famous Myrtos beach.

Goodbye Fiscardo! Goodbye Kefalonia!