"Lefkas '88, '92 and '97 (page 3 of The... " a Lefkas Travel Page by nickandchris

After leaving Parga we took the coastal road to Preveza, first calling at Ammoudia (unknown to us then), which was very wild, windy and beautiful. Kept it in reserve for later in the holiday. The roads in this area are tricky and poorly sign-posted and we kept finding ourselves going away from the coast yet we could see a road by the coast. Most strange. There were some lovely beaches along this coastline and our first night wild camping was spent by a wild beach, not sure exactly where. We had a campfire and beach-combed. I remember it was blowing a gale. There was a sunken ship off this beach.

We had an English friend who was in Greece working on the building of the Preveza Tunnel and decided to call in on him.
We shopped in Preveza which we think is a lovely little town. We asked the girl in the supermarket where exactly the tunnel was being built and she thought it was on the other side of the water. We caught the ferry to Aktion which cost 1700drx. for a mere minute's ride. On leaving the ferry, the van in front of us decided to reverse into us instead of moving forwards.Fortunately there was no damage!!!
Christiani and Neilson were easy to find and so was our friend Matt, who was working so arranged to meet him at 5pm when he finished. Nick, being an engineer, was fascinated with the tunnel building, it all being put together in sections.
We went to have a look at Vonitsa, to the east of Aktion. We were expecting it to be very touristy but we were pleasantly suprised and really liked the place.It is situated on the southern shores of the Ambracian Gulf with waterfront tavernas, all fairly low key.
We returned to Aktion and Matt and enjoyed catching up with all his news. It was a good few years since we had last seen him. It was his first experience of Greece but he had really adapted to the Greek life-style and had even found himself a Greek girlfriend.He told us the Greek workforce all got inebriated on Friday nights and turned into work on the Saturday still drunk.
Evening was drawing in and we had to find somewhere to camp the night so decided to revisit Lefkas, being quite close by.

It was a mere 8km. drive to Lefkas from Aktion. Opted for the beach that runs around the lagoon and found a place to camp, near the windmills. It was a magnificent place, right by the sea on one side and behind was the lagoon with great views to Lefkas Town.

We have holidayed on Lefkas twice before, in the 80's and '90's, both times staying at Vassiliki.We loved Vassiliki on the first holiday, we were staying in an orange grove and spent most evenings watching the fire flies at work. The first time we had ever seen them. We toured the island extensively and loved what we saw. Beautiful villages, green countryside and fantastic beaches. The people were very friendly too. The second holiday we found Vassiliki much more built up and
commercialised. It was October and most of the tavernas had shut, the spring is definitely a better time to visit.

Lefkas is the 4th largest Ionian island, hardly an island as it is joined to the mainland by a causeway now .It's name is taken from the white cliffs in the south, Leukos.

It is very mountainous and fertile, with cotton, olives and vines all being very productive. Large areas are forested with pines and firs.
It has no airport, Aktion serves as the islands air-link, about 20kms. away.

Lefkas's main resorts are on the East coast, around Nidri, and in the south, Vassiliki, claimed to be Europe's biggest windsurfing centre.

Back at our camp (in 1997) in the motorhome, we fell asleep to the sound of the thundering waves crashing on the shore.

Obviously with our visits to Lefkas being quite a while ago things will have changed significantly. Hopefully some of the info. will be of some use and maybe some of the views won't have altered too much.

Continue to Page 4 of The Adventure