A 1:45am taxi pick-up, a 5am flight from Manchester Airport and a trouble free shuttle-bus got us to our hotel, in the resort of Nidri, for 11:30 am.

The room hasn’t got the premier view, but it’s clean and modernized (by island standards) and if you stand on tiptoe and crick your neck you can get a sea view. However the views of the shrubs and trees in bloom against the backdrop of the mountains are pretty impressive.

The local comedy builders have been involved in the modernisation and up to now they have forgotten to put the screws in the room’s inside door handle and the unfixed toilet seat has decided that its real calling in life is as a genital removing toboggan.

I don’t think that the hotel’s Mr Fix-it is a local because he repaired the door handle within 20 minutes of reporting it, but the seat remained a challenge for the rest of the week.

I’ve been told that the hotel doesn’t have safety deposit boxes because “it is safe” here on the island of Lefkas.

Mrs is asleep after the journey and I’m on the balcony – it’s very hot – but I’m in the shade and that is very pleasant. Perhaps I shouldn’t be eyeing up the lemons on the tree opposite and wondering if they’re ripe.

I’m restless and want to go and orientate myself with the area – perhaps I’ll accidentally cough very loudly to see if Mrs is awake.

Didn’t work. So got dressed and walked down, through the restaurant bar – tree shaded tables almost down to the waters edge – leaving just enough room for sunbathers. The view, looking out, is magnificent. Rather than looking across open sea, it’s almost like looking across a lake with the backdrop of surrounding islands with their rising hills.

Walked along the beach a short way, then cut back up back past the apartments to the high street.

In the immediate vicinity –a couple of small supermarkets, a bakery that looks well worth trying and the car hire/safety deposit/day trips/exchange shop.

Decided that without a safe might not be safe so hired a safety deposit box for the week. Enquired about their exchange rate which was fair enough and I‘ll use later.

Called in a supermarket on the way back and picked up a carton of cigarettes, a bottle of whisky for a bed-time tipple and a couple of bottles of water.

Back at the hotel I couldn’t resist sitting under the cool shade of the trees with an ice cold bottle of Mythos beer from the bar.

A chap called Ben of about thirty years asked me for a light and we got talking – he is here for two weeks with his girlfriend (they’re from Leeds) – he’s been here before. As both our ladies were asleep we took our leave and went back to our rooms.

Mrs still asleep.

4:30 Mrs woke up – we looked over the places I’d seen earlier and walked down to and along the beach.

In front of our hotel Mrs sat on a lounger while I had a short swim. The water was cooling without being cold. We decided that after 6:00 is probably the best time to sunbathe without frying.

6:45 back to the room – the plan is to eat earlier tonight because of the lack of sleep in the last thirty-six hours. Blessed the fact that we had brought a little portable electric element with us, pulled cups, coffee and creamer out of the suitcases and brewed two very welcoming cups of coffee.

That evening we went along to a restaurant called El Grecos in the harbour area, where, overlooking the rich folk’s boats and yachts, Mrs enjoyed a vegetable lasagne and I tucked into a chicken souvlaki.

Monday 16th

Woke up to the alarm and went down to breakfast at 8:30 am. Not bad.

Nice big soft bread roll and apricot jam, glass of orange juice and as much coffee as you wanted, as strong as you like it.

Went along to the holiday rep’s meeting at the Notos bar by walking along the beach and the bar was up on the road, just back from the beach.

Listened to all the usual and the attempts to sell us as many trips as possible. Made a note of all the interesting places and hired a car for the following two days to go and see them. Fifty Euros a day for the car has got to be better than fifty Euros per trip for the two of us!

Picked up some bits and pieces from the supermarket and persuaded the owner to freeze a bottle of water for us every day.

By the time we got back to the beach there were no sun loungers available in front of our hotel so we went further along.

Usual – ‘played’ and swam in the water, sunbathed, then back into the water, then sunbathed…..

For lunch we went into the cool of the bar whose front we were bathing on – Greek salad, bread and fries – shared. Cold water and beer to wash it down.

Mrs has a pizza head on tonight so we found an ‘Italian’ just off the high street with a nice little garden at the back. Shared a bottle of water and half a carafe of house white with the pizzas.

At this point it should be noted that here the amount of mosquitoes are the worst we have ever come across- suffice to say that the battle to keep them off is a battle of epic proportions and no doubt by the end of the week we will be using the bites to play join the dots.

Tuesday 17th

After breakfast we went around the corner to pick up the hire car; brought it back to the hotel and piled it up with our holiday stuff.

We headed north through places like Nikiani and Kariotes to Lefkade. Lefkade was a bit of a nightmare to negotiate but eventually we got back in the right direction to swing back down the west coast. As we rose into the hills there were clear views of Lefkade.

We came across a monastery that looked like a riot had taken place there. There were empty market stalls with plastic chairs and rubbish strewn everywhere. Apparently there had been a special Saint’s day yesterday (a bank holiday) and thousands of people from all over Greece had descended on the place. I’m assuming that they were waiting for the hangovers to ease before returning to tidy up!

Moving on down the west coast through Agios Nikitos, we descended to Kathisma- a lovely long stretch of sand greeting us.

We’d heard that if you walked on past this beach there was a quieter alternative beach further along – there was – but the sand was so soft underfoot that it became a somewhat sweaty ‘never again’ trek.

The heat on the beach was overwhelming and we had nothing with us to provide shade. We were deciding whether to head down to a rock at the far end of the beach to shelter when we saw a family come onto the beach, talking in German to each other and pointing at the rock…….the race was on!

We grabbed our things off the sand and set off at a swift, ‘trying to appear nonchalant’ walking pace- we could hear them crunching on the sand behind us.

When we had almost reached the rock – which formed a small sheltered cave – their teenage daughter sprinted past us into the rocks and cockily started dancing about and looking smug. We got there, totally ignored her and spread our towel and bags out, knowing that we’d won. Looking gutted she sulked back to her family who set themselves down to bake on the beach.

When we looked inside the rock we found that somebody had left behind an old beach umbrella which we immediately put up.

The pleasure of victory was short lived however. We were attacked by horseflies with bayonets fixed. We thrashed about, we hit ourselves and each other, we danced up and down – but they had decided that the rocks were their territory and that British Beef was on the menu. They won.

We upped and went back along the beach with our rusty umbrella, as far away from that rock as we could – giving our won ground back to the enemy – let them get eaten!

When we set up again, we gained an ally. A large wasp hovered about two meters away from us and as soon as any flying insect came close it attacked them and chased them away. I don’t know why it did it, but it was our guardian angel.

The sea was really nice here. It appeared white from the limestone sand and consequently very clear, with slightly strong wave movements.

Unfortunately we overdid it and later found ourselves somewhat tender from the sun.

Eventually, in the late afternoon we set off, back to our hotel in the resort of Nidri, travelling around the south of the island and up the east coast, finding a couple of pretty little harbours on the way.

Wednesday 18th

After breakfast and a quick consultation with the map, we got in the car and set off north along the east coast again.

Today we have decided to head inland and stay away from combining any bare flesh with the sun.

The main town of the island is Lefkada, which is a little bit nerve wracking to drive through, so we swung left before we came to the town and headed into the mountains.

The roads are quite steep with hairpin bends to gain height, so most of the driving going up in the 1000cc Punto is in first and second gears. The most striking thing is the vastness of the views: soaring mountains and dramatic drops to the seas or into valleys. No snapshot could do it justice because the beauty was the whole of it and not just part of it.

Kyria is a “village of traditional crafts” recommended for sight-seeing to tourists. It’s not. It is a small not very attractive town, aimed directly as a tourist trip. We didn’t stop but turned around and carried on our journey. What is more appealing are the ‘natural’ small villages – just a collection of houses with perhaps a small taverna, grouped along the road with the residents going about their lives – the typically black-clad older Greek women to be seen everywhere.

Heading south we drove into the south-west peninsula and came to the highest village on the island, Athani. This has genuine charm. To the north, east and south the views are dramatic and mountainous. To the west the sea goes on until it disappears into the mists on the horizon.

We called into a taverna (boasting “panoramic views of the sunset”) for lunch, and ordered a cheese toastie, an omelette, orange juice, and two coffees, which came along with the compulsory bread. Not surprisingly the food was well served, but we were pleasantly surprised to find it to be probably the cheapest prices we had paid anywhere on the island. The owner was a small friendly man and a woman, we assumed to be his wife, appeared at one point marching a rather glum child, who appeared to have been body-surfing in dust, off to be hosed down.

We were treated to the Greek preference of mobile phone tones by two locals (businessmen we presumed) who were seated at a table with the usual confusion of varied plates in front of them.

The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the drive across the island, taking in the views and sights on the way back to Nidri and returning the car to the hire company.

For the last three days in Nidri there are no diary entries because we just relaxed and enjoyed the resort. Days were spent on the beach – sunbathing, swimming and snorkelling and broken by going into the cool of a taverna at lunch time for a salad and a cold beer. Evenings were spent walking along to the harbour to sit in a restaurant looking out at the rich folk’s toys in the harbour. There was an odd moment of envy there sometimes, but mainly it was of quiet satisfaction of just being there.

All photographs were taken by the author.

The map was taken from Google images.

Other articles about places and events by this author:

A Cultural Landscape: Yorkshire Sculpture Park 
Fingal’s Cave and the Incredible Architectural Rock Formations of Staffa
Carnival: Dirty Jenny in Aalst! (Carnaval: Voil Jeannetten En Aalst!)
Hilarious Flashmob Craze is Spreading Around the World