"Cefalonia, the sheep head shaped island." Top 5 Page for this destination Cefalonia Island by JLBG

Cefalonia Island Travel Guide: 135 reviews and 316 photos

The name of Cefalonia means "the head" because of its shape, looking like the head of a goat. Cefalonia (in Greek Kefallinia) is the largest of the Ionian Islands. It is also the most mountainous. The summit of the island is Mount Ainos, elevation 1626 m. That might not seem very high, but you must consider that it is only 3.5 km away from the sea, as the crow flies! That is pretty steep!

Most ferries land at Sami, on the east coast, but the capital is Argostoli, standing on the west coast. There is always one of the ferries named Ayos Hierasimos as it is the name of the Saint patron of the island.

Ionian islands

I visited Cefalonia several times, both by land, with our Land-Rover and by boat on a small sailing boat. By land, I visited the whole island, from north to south and from east to west. When that was on the occasion of self-steered cruises, we remained on the east coast. Our boats were too small to cruise safely on the west coast.

Cefalonia island makes the largest part of the Nome of Cefalonia (named Prefecture of Cefalonia on VT). Unsurprisigly, Ithaki island makes the second largest part

Cefalonia

Note concerning the name of places in Greece and especially in Cefalonia
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Greek has declinations, thus, in Greek, the name of a place can be spelled in (usually two) different ways. An example is Argostoli/Argostolion.

As Greek uses the Greek alphabet, all names of villages, cities, etc, given in Latin fonts are transcriptions. There are different systems of transcription. Then, the name of one village or one location can be transcript in different ways. An example is Fiskardo/Fiskardhon for Ψιςκαρδο.

VT location database uses sometimes transcript that are not among the most usual. Each time I feel it is necessary, I will give the Greek name in Greek fonts, the VT name and what I feel is the most usual transcript, found on most maps (not all of them, that would be too easy!).

This note works for everywhere in Greece but I had more problems adjusting the different transcript on Cefalonia.

Intro Updated Jul 14, 2008
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Reviews (16)

Camping in the wild! Hotels (1)

On Cefallonia, it was not always easy to find a suitable place to spend the night. This one was almost perfect, at the... more travel advice

Peratata to Markopoulo - Cefalonia Island

Peratata to Markopoulo Things to Do (13)

This photo was not taken from a plane but from our car ! The road from Peratata to Markopoulo is winding all the time on... more travel advice

Beehives Local Customs (2)

Yoghurt sprinkled with honey is a great Greek delicacy. Bakhlava is another delicacy sprinkled with honey. And there are... more travel advice

Pesada Things to Do (13)

Pesada is a small village east to Argostoli. The first photo shows the very small harbor we found hen e were on a road... more travel advice

Comments (5)

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volopolo Aug 4, 2009 at 8:11 PM

I don't know if you show it Jean but Kefalonia and Argostoli city have an excellent architecture. We name it Ionian islands architecture
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diosh Jul 13, 2008 at 2:56 AM

Beautiful photos of this stunning island:-)
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LoriPori Jul 7, 2008 at 3:26 AM

What an incredibly beautiful island with breathtaking landscapes. I esp. like the fishing village of Fiskardo.
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Kuznetsov_Sergey Jul 4, 2008 at 10:33 AM

I can imagine how fascinating it is to explore this beautiful island by Land-Rover far away from tourist crowds! I'm sure you had many reasons to come back there several times. A very scenic page!
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nomorewars Jul 3, 2008 at 7:15 AM

The Melissani Cave looks sensational! Did you go diving or anything like that? You always seem to find such wonderful, hidden treasures.