Getting to Lefkas. Since it is as mentioned all but attached to the mainland there is plenty of opportunity to drive to the Island - which is what many Greeks and Italians do once the summer arrives. If flying in from Northern Europe you arrive into the military airport at Preveza (on the mainland) - flight time out of Gatwick is around 175 minutes and then coaches take you off onto the island - Nidri is around 50 minutes of coach trip for instance.
Roads - Driving etc. There is an extensive series of tracks
going off here and there on the island - sadly quite a few just come to a dead
end sometimes in the middle of nowhere. These tracks often as not were really
suitable only for goats, sheep and pick-up trucks - probably most cars would end
up with nice shiny bottoms if used on many of them.
 With easily the best beaches
on the west coast and with most people staying on towns along the east coast it
is sadly the case that you cannot easily and quickly cross from one coastline to
the other because of the mountains - at best you have to take big diversions
around the interior to achieve a crossing. Otherwise you have the option of the
long trip up along the coast to Lefkas Town and then back down the coast the
other side. However we did find a couple of ways across - several routes shown
as tracks on the Freytag have actually been tar-macd. The best map we found was the Freytag -
according to our gps trackings in most cases the map was really accurate - although even
this map did not have all the tracks shown. Although the surfaced roads are
signposted at junctions many of the unmarked tracks you may come across have no
indication of destination at all.
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Sightseeing. The mountains are very impressive of course especially up in the Pirghos area where the rock formations are beautiful and really show off the absolute masses of wild flowers - we spent a lot of time up in this area during our holiday just wandering around on various small roads and tracks.
There are a variety of monasteries around to visit - with we believe only one actually fully occupied. The
monasteries are often signposted quite well but amazingly although
most of them are unused and in some cases really derelict in quite a few cases
you find after the long trip to reach one that it is padlocked and apparently no
way in. A typical example of this is the Aghios Nikolaos Monastery which is
located far south around Cape Axani.
This really lovely monastery is in good condition and signposted from miles away
yet is well and truly padlocked and has double high fencing around it so you can
hardly see the buildings let alone go inside to have a look round. We have quite
a few photos of this monastery plus quite a few other monastery photos as well
as of a variety of castles, lighthouses and windmills which can
be found here.
There are also quite a few
photos of various locations around the island for example Nidhri, Vasiliki and
Aghios Nikitas which are to be found on this page.
Walking. Quite honestly unless you don't particularly want nice long (or even
short) circular walks on paths and sometimes tracks then forget Lefkada for a walking holiday.
There are no paths to speak of - the tracks quite often go no where and very few
are signed anyway so you have
to just walk them there and back or else you have to get into a commitment for a
really long walk of maybe 25 km to make a circular walk up.
In this case almost certainly a
huge amount of climbing is required and you may well have to walk a lot of the time
on tarmac roads or lanes. We think that Lefkas is probably much more suited to
biking than walking - it is of course just as hard going when your route takes
you up into the mountains but the tracks and roads are nice and quiet and you
can at least have a nice freewheel on the way back. On the plus side the roads are generally very quiet
indeed with only the occasional pick-up truck meandering by and in May you are
walking between masses of broom and wild flowers etc. - but it is nice to
be able to walk on non-hard surfaces at least for a while. Lefkas is probably the most disappointing of the 16 or so Greek
Islands we have visited from a walking point of view due to it's almost total lack of paths.
Nevertheless we did find a few track and lane walks which were enjoyable mainly
due to the scenery and abundant foliage and wildlife and these are described
with photos on this walks page.
Wildlife. Lots of birds were around with buzzards frequently
seen up in the mountains - accompanied by the usual grumpy crows trying to scare
them off. Around the towns and villages there were loads of sparrows which is
nice to see (we seem to have lost a lot of our sparrows in England), also the
fantastic flying displays from the swifts and swallows were always available. We
spotted quite a few lizards around especially up in the hills -
as far as snakes were concerned there must be quite a few about
as we frequently saw - sadly - dead ones on the roads.
Again once up in the
mountains we did on occasion come across various snakes busily basking away in
the sun alongside the tracks - but generally speaking you can only get to a few
yards before they clear off. (who can blame the snakes for being so frightened
considering the way many Greeks will go out of their way to kill any they come
across - a pathetic and unnecessary thing to do. Is it justified to kill a deadly
viper - moot point of view if you are working in the fields amongst them because
they do obviously pose a threat. However grass snakes, leopard snakes,
Montpelliers - these are harmless - why oh why slaughter them.)
Bees and Wasps and Butterflies. Particularly up on the mountain areas there
were an incredible amount of butterflies and bees around - obviously enjoying the fields of red
poppies and other wild flowers which were in such abundance in this part of
May/June.
Generally speaking we did not find any problem with the bees however if
there are goats or sheep about watch out for flies - some of these will give you
white a bite if they can. Matter of interest we drove to one monastery buried up
in the hills and ultimately decided not to even get out of the car (we could see
the gates were locked anyway) however the reason for not even trying to find a
"back way in over the fence" was the massive amount of bees around - they were
really swarming and banging into the car windows and bodywork. Having decided to
just leave, the bees followed us down the track for over half a kilometre. We
were around the area a couple of days later and thought to try to visit this
monastery again but the bees were just as active.
Lefkada Beaches. The best beaches by far on the Greek Island of Lefkas are
located on the western side of the island - with a while series available more
or less starting a little south of Aghios Nikitas.
The beaches north of Aghios
Nikitas are quite pebbly and some are subject to beach debris though
possibly they will be cleaner than when we visited which was early season May.
Once you get to Kathisma Beach the really great beaches occur going down as far
as Meghali Petra. These beaches are sand and shingle mix and are actually more
or less connected depending on the tides. They offer facilities varying from
taverna and beach chairs and so on through to nothing at all - just wild beach.
Therefore the possibilities for chosing a bit of beach for whatever type of
sunbathing and swimming dress you fancy are widely possible. Certainly on the
south side of Kathisma's long beach area we enjoyed plenty of nude sunbathing
and swimming along with a few others. We have created a page about the beaches
we found - how to get to them etc. which is
located here.
Items about Lefkada on Our Site
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Good External Links
Lefkas by Greeka
Lefkas Greece Travel Guide from Greek Island Postcards