This will be the first blog post where the list of things to do is much longer than the restaurants I recommend. We reached a point in Kefalonia where I actually thought we wouldn’t even have one restaurant to recommend!! We spent five days in Kefalonia and our first good meal only arrived on our last full day!! I will say Kefalonia is an incredibly beautiful island and for that, she is worthy of a visit. I think of the Islands we have had a chance to visit so far – Kefalonia wins the beauty contests. BUT if you’re looking for good food alongside your beautiful island I would recommend Paros. Because of this, I am going to flip my usual script and run you through the many fantastic things to do and places to explore in Kefalonia first.
Important to flag for my London friends – Kefalonia is a direct flight away so it makes a great extended weekend city break. Greece is a longer flight with Kefalonia being about a 3.5hour flight and +2hours so it’s not a great idea for only a weekend trip but it worked well for our late Friday night flight and Wednesday afternoon exit.
Things we did when not eating
– Explore Fiskardo Village. Historic harbor town on the northern tip of Kefalonia. Have a look in the shops, grab lunch, sit by the water.
– Chill out at Antisamos beach. Fantastic stone beach spot with free sun loungers as long as you buy a drink. I thought it would be an awful rip off but my mojito was €9 which sounds awful if you turn it into South African rands but it really isn’t bad for a beach bar set up including a beach spot. I’d recommend heading through earlier to get a sun lounger near the front! We also discovered the most delicious mulberries I’d ever tried providing shade in the car park.
– Visit Melissani Cave. This is not a muuust visit but it makes sense to visit on your way to Antisamos beach in the morning. It gets busy with tour buses of tourists so if you’d like to visit – go early! And it’s €10 per person – which is pretty steep for a ten minute boat ride into the cave and out. But I did enjoy the visit and would recommend it if you’re spending pounds or euros.
– Trek down to Myrtos beach. Gorgeous stone beach which was much quieter possibly due to the lack of sun loungers and umbrellas or any form of infrastructure. Make sure to bring your own water, beers and snacks to enjoy on the beach. There’s a little cave on the far left worth a quick explore. And look out for perfectly round stones.
– Don’t miss the Myrtos Beach viewpoint. Make sure to pull over for a quick stop at the Myrtos Beach viewpoint on your way out (you can find it on Google Maps under this name). The views really are breathtaking.
– Explore the town of Argostoli. Highlights include the De Bosset Bridge which Google tells me is “the longest stone bridge crossing the sea in the world”. The magic of the bridge is the amazing marine life!! We spotted turtles, crabs, an eel, anemones and many many fish. It was so exciting seeing all these creatures and I would highly recommend using the bridge as an excuse to slow down and find the gems!
– Explore Asos. Asos was our home base for our time in Kefalonia. It’s a pretty sleepy little town but it was so beautiful. Because it’s sleepy and a little more out of the way it isn’t as busy as the other towns we visited but I preferred it that way.
– Day trip to Ithaca. Highlights include: Vathy, Filiatro Beach, Kioni and the only good meal in Kefalonia (that’s not actually in Kefalonia…). We started our day exploring Vathy with orange cake and coffee and plenty of window shopping. We then moved on to Filiatro Beach which was very much out of the way but this meant it was quiet and beautiful and largely unspoilt. There are sun loungers to rent for €15 but as we only had an hour to spend at Filiatro we opted to sit on the beach. Lunch was at Ageri in Frikes- fantastic! Finally! Our last stop on Ithaca was Kioni – another tucked away spot with lovely seaside restaurants and souvenir shops. I picked up these hilarious bright cats to remind me of our trip.
How to get to Ithaca: There are a few options – you can do an organised tour either by bus or by yacht. I wouldn’t recommend either. Or you can explore independently. To explore by foot you’d take a ferry from Fiskardo. To explore with your own car you’d take the ferry from Sami. I would highly recommend taking your own car to make the most of your day on Ithaca.
Restaurants we loved in Kefalonia
– Ageri Restaurant, Frikes Bay on Ithaca
We finally found it! A properly good restaurant recommendation from our trip! It’s completely out the way in a little hidden cove and it seems most of the other diners visited via their yachts (muuust be nice!). Definitely the tastiest food and whilst pretty inconvenient, I would highly recommend a day trip to Ithaca and a lunch stop at Ageri. The panko tempura prawns were fantastic! The calamari, greek salad and tzatziki were all great too. And if you’re looking for something a little less traditional, Jono had a perfect pork belly – tender belly with crispy crackling!
Places we visited but weren’t our favourites
– Nicolas Tavern – Great view, alright food.
– Restaurant il Familia – Great location in Sami. My dad’s carbonara ravioli were great but everything else was fine.
– Nefeli-Anait – Good location in Asos. I enjoyed my crayfish linguine. Other dishes were alright. Very good warmed orange cake with ice cream.
– Mageiraki – Tasty gyros but nothing special. Very bad orange cake.
– Three Wise Monkeys – Mexican food for a change. Pork croquettes were good. Both the taco meat fillings were very dry.
– Kalafatis – Seaside location in Argostoli. Best draft beers we had. Bad service. Not great food.
– Estiatorio Platanos – Lovely warm service. I liked the local sausages with beans, the tzatziki and warm pitas. The suckling pig had good crackling but sadly was otherwise pretty dry. It was a good meal but not a great meal.
Places on our next visit list / maybe you should try
– Lorraine’s Magic Hill
– Hellenic Bistro
– Tassia’s
To car or not to car?
I don’t want to add costs to your trip – but without a car, you are unfortunately just not going to be able to see enough of this gorgeous island. We saw people walking in the sun along windy steep roads and honestly, it looked awful. We went with Auto Kefalonia and they were so lovely! They’re a local Kefalonian car rental company. You book online, they’ll meet you at the airport with the car and you only pay in country. Easy, relaxed and they didn’t have all that typical car rental admin. My mom also said they were considerably more affordable than the typical big brand car rental options.
Where we stayed in Kefalonia
We stayed at Villa Vivere in Asos which was a lovely location that comfortably accommodates six adults with their own bathrooms, plenty of social space and a big kitchen. I appreciated the daily cleaning service, beautiful interiors and high quality linen. Their professional photos are edited as the property looks like it is on the edge of the cliff but it’s actually on a road with a big ugly fence. You’ll spot it in my swimming pool photo. The road is not busy but we definitely had a few people walking past the pool every day. Other negatives include no shady spots by the pool (which we have mentioned to the really great villa owners and I am sure they will fix asap with umbrellas) and dreadful water pressure (ie only one shower at a time). All in all, I would recommend Villa Vivere and think it was great value at roughly £450 per night for six adults in shoulder season.
Other great links for reading about Kefalonia
These are the websites that helped me plan our time in Kefalonia – The Mediterranean Traveller, The World was here first, Travelento and You me under the palm tree.
Good link for restaurant options.
Good links on exploring Ithaca – Culture Trip and The Mediterranean Traveller.
Have the best time in Kefalonia
with all my love, Tahlia
