Cyclades Islands : Amorgos, Andros, Folegandros, Ios, Kea, Kythnos, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros and Antiparos, Santorini, Sifnos, Serifos, Sikinos, Syros, Tinos

Northern Aegean Islands:
Chios, Ikaria, Limnos, Lesvos, Samos, Samothraki, Thassos

Ionian Islands:
Corfu (Kerkyra), Ithaki, Kefalonia, Kythera, Lefkada, Paxos, Zakynthos

Saronic Islands:
Aegina, Angistri, Poros, Hydra, Salamina, Spetsis

Sporades Islands:
Alonissos, Skiathos, Skopelos, Skyros

Dodecanese Islands:
Astypalia, Halki, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kassos, Kastellorizo, Kos, Leros, Nisyros, Patmos, Rhodes, Symi, Tilos

Other Islands:
Crete, Evia, Cyprus

Ionian Islands - Kefalonia (Cephalonia, Kefallinia, Cephallonia)

 

Kefalonia, with its excellent little museum, ruins of so many centuries, and its brave and curious people, embodies much of what Greece is about. It is the largest of the Ionian islands, at about 302 square miles. It is mountainous, with Mount Ainos, over a mile high, often snowcapped well into the summer. There are few permanent streams, and even the springs may fail in summer, leaving the island dry and unnourished. In the west, a gulf penetrates the island, providing a place for the capital and port Argostolion; and on the west side is the town Lixourion. Currants are the chief export of the island, but olives, grapes, grain, and cotton are also crops grown here. Kefalonia also manufactures lace, carpet, wine, and boats.

Kefalonia has an ancient past; archaeologists have dug up flint tools from the Ice Age, when Kefalonia ws joined to Zakynthos by a land bridge. Kefalonia may have been known to Homer as Same. In the Peloponnjesian War, it took the side of Athens and was a member of the Aetolian League; later it surrendered to, then revolted against, Rome; it was subdued. Later it was ruled by Normans, Neapolitans, Venetians and Turks. France owned it briefly during Napoleon, but the British took it, later ceding it to Greece. As happened to many of the Ionian islands, Kefalonia was devastated by an earthquake in 1953.

Because of the frequent earthquakes, fewer ancient ruins than one would expect in a location like this exist; however, you can find the ruins of Cranii (Krani), and of the Venetian castle of St. George. Mycenaean tombs have been excavated at Mazakarata and Diakata. Behind the port at Sami, ancient ramparts still circle the hills, and in Argostolion’s archaeological museum, Mycenaean jewelry of beaten gold gleams in dusty cases. At Cranii, two miles of giant polygonal blocks run along the crest of the hill; the blocks were perfectly joined,m fitted together with no mortar

In the fifth century BC, Thucydides spoke of four different city states on Kefalonia, and ruins of many of them still exist. Kefalonia also keeps Greek traditions alive with her heritage of supplying professors and shipowners, both explorers of the world and of the intellect, both found in greater numbers in Kefalonia than in most places in Greece. And explorers of gentle spirituality can be found in the convent in Omala, founded by St. Gerasimos, patron saint of Kefalonia, who cast out a boy’s demons to gain his veneration.

In more recent history, Lord Byron lived in Kefalonia in his Venetian Castle of St. George on the south end of the island, just before his death. Nearby, hotels on sea cliffs overlook beautiful beaches. On top of Mount Ainos, you can visit one of the few primeval forests in Greece, with its dark and jagged rows of firs cutting across the skyline. Above the trees, the summit opens into a spectacular view; from over a mile above sea level, you can see the whole island; sometimes clouds float by beneath your feet. Crevasses in the rock at sea level open to allow ships to float through, and one is reminded of the clashing rocks that the Argonauts had to pass through. St. Gerasimos still inhabits the island; pilgrims can kiss the feet of his well-preserved corpse to ask his healing touch for their sick minds and bodies during his festival in mid-August; those of us less desperate or of weaker constitution can watch pilgrims kiss his feet.

One of the more fantastic traits of the island is the way the ocean streams into fissures near Argostolion, and comes out at the other end of the island, having passed completely beneath its mountains through a network of underground passages. You can visit the watery caverns at Melissani and watch the water from over ten miles away come bubbling up in the bottom of the cerulean blue waters of the grotto.