Exploring the magic of Zakynthos

Zakynthos was the second Greek island that we visited, and just as amazing, but for different reasons.

We hired a car to get around this island as its bigger than Santorini and more spread out. This island is also a lot quieter, lots of land, and my favourite part- the scattered peach, apricot, and lemon trees everywhere.

But what this island is most famous for is Navagio Beach or Shipwreck Beach, and I am hardly surprised, this spot was by far the most amazing and wonderful view I have seen yet. It’s a pretty big drive from the Airport out to Shipwreck beach. The airport is about an hour from Navagio beach, and to get there follow signs to Navagio beach the whole way or put it into your maps when you have internet access. Navagio beach is hard to explain, the colours of the water are out of this world, and you can only access the beach from boat. The boat trip out there only takes about 40 minutes, and takes you around the coastline and into little private inlets where you can stop and go for a swim. During the day many boats head out there, and the beach is usually really packed. The view from the top is the best part. We ventured around the lookout to find some other places to view from. It was scary, but it sure did take my breath away, sitting on the edge, looking down below had me in awe.

We stayed at a little cottage we found (last minute) on booking.com. It’s called Vigla in Volimai. It was a quaint little villa covered in flowers, close to the beach where boats depart for Shipwreck Beach, also had a kitchen, free wifi, and amazing views overlooking the ocean. The beautiful lady that runs the place is so kind and welcoming, she brought us fresh apricots and loukoumades (a traditional dish of fried greek honey fritters), and even did our washing.

Traditional food on the island isn’t hard to find, just steer clear of the busy towns on the island and you will find some treasures. Similarly to Santorini, vegan food isn’t hard to get. Traditional dishes include sliced veggies (zucchini, capsicum, potato and eggplant) covered in rich homemade tomato sauce and olive oil, dolmades, stuffed tomatoes, greek salad and potato salad. Towards the end of our time on Zakynthos we were all craving rice and well really we were just craving Asian food. So we headed into Zante town and found a place called Hong Kong Kitchen, which served sushi, noodles, stirfry’s and loads of veggie/vegan options. There was quiet a lot of beautiful produce on this island (including fresh stone fruit), so a few meals we cooked from our little home. We also found the cutest juice stall along the road making fresh OJ.

While on Zakynthos we visited Kefalonia island as it was a short ferry ride over for the day, we took the car over as it’s the easiest and best way to get around these islands. On Kefalonia theres the lake cave of Melissani, which is pretty touristy but really stunning, little paddle boats take you on a short tour into the caves. The beaches on this island are also stunning, we drove around the coast and stopped in at some white pebble beaches for a dip.

Keep scrolling for a photo diary of our trip to Zakynthos and Kefalonia.