Zakynthos

Such a holiday, Zakynthos! August 2008, the summer when we reached the peak of people leaving all together: 16 guys, friends or not didn’t matter. Now, imagine the fights, loves, accidents, laughter, the teases that attended our 10 days together :)

Departing from Bari, Ionian King ship, landing at Patras, deck € 62. Then another ferry from Patras to Zakynthos 10 € only.

The hours of navigation were endless, I swear: 18 hours in a ship never fly! Luckily I live in London now, so if I’d like to go back to Greece I’ll be forced to take a plane XD

No more chatting, let’s get back to business: Zakynthos. The island with thousands of beaches and thousands shades of blue. The best thing is to rent a car or a scooter, wake up early and enjoy all the views you can! The beaches that I’ve seen are:

It ‘a long and wide beach of fine sand, its beauty lies in the absence of tourist facilities! Why? As well as all the beaches of Laganas bay, Gerakas is a protected habitat because the turtles come here to store their eggs: after sunset, in fact, the access is denied in order not to disturb them *_*

It ‘a very long stretch of sand, the sea has a sandy bottom and rocky offshore. I found it quite wild and not much touristic, maybe ’cause it was very windy that day … anyway we had almost the whole beach to ourselves! We then ate well in a very simple tavern overlooking the beach, unfortunately I don’t remember the name and I saved no receipt, but wanting to go back would be very simple: they have their own gazebo near the stairs that go down to the beach.

It ‘a small fiord with UNFORGETTABLE colors. I did not change anything about the photo! That’s he real color of the sea! Another memorable thing is the water temperature: frozen :D Everyone, diving, screamed for the icy impact … but it was worth! Porto Limnionas has not a real beach, rather a rock platform on which you can lay a towel and dive into the blue. So zero umbrellas or sunbeds, all beautifully wild *_*

The beach of Laganas was “our” beach, the one under our flat, to clarify. The sea is not bad, just Laganas is disgustingly turistic! The super crowded beach, with endless restaurants and bars, the streets full of discos and oafishes … not the kind of place i love, commonly known.

It’s a fiord located on the west coast of the island, full of starfish and sea urchins! If you swim to the left for 10 minutes you get to a cave in which you can enter by walking, there we made ​​the picture of the starfish :) Also, the bravest (like my brother and my cousin) can climb to the top of the 20 meters high rock arch and dive: the water below is very deep, so there’s no risk of crashing into the rocks. It was an adrenaline shot just watching them!

We arrived in Porto Azzurro when the sun was already falling, so I’m not sure of the clarity of the water. But we had great fun when we found a creek down the beach containing a source of natural mud to be covered with :D

And here it is, the Zakynthos most famous beach, the icon, the postcard. It’s called Navagio because in 1980 a smuggling cigarettes ship wrecked and got stuck here. I’ve never seen that bright blue anywhere, neither that white sand and rocks *_* It is located north-west from the town of Zakynthos and is accessible only by the sea: they arrange excursions to Navagio every day, of course :) On the way, the boat stops along the blue caves for you to dive! Beautiful!

Not bad the beaches of Keri ‘, St.Nikolas, Kalamaki, but I prefer not to describe because i saw them just passing by. However, there are many other beaches to see, zanteisland.com is very useful for this! Is useless to talk about the greek food, I love it and Zante didn’t disappoint my taste :)