Kalamaki; Monday, 06 October, 2025

The weather forecast for today was much worse than that for Saturday and I’d been expecting the tour which had been rescheduled to be cancelled, but late the previous evening I’d been sent a pick-up time and a message that the boat part of the tour might change, depending on how the weather changed, though with a big swell and thunder storms floating around it wasn’t looking ideal weather for being out on a boat anyway.

After breakfast I was picked up and after a couple more stops the tour started in Zante Town before heading up into the hills above the capital and the village of Bochali which has excellent views over Zakynthos Town, the harbour and over to Laganas Bay the airport and Marathonisi, though the latter was disappearing in and out of the rain clouds. Bochali is also home to the remains of the Venetian fortress that once guarded the island, but most of this has now gone and there wasn’t time to explore them on this tour.

From Bochali we drove north up the island, stopping off at a café in the hills for views down the east coast of the island and making an occasional appearance through the clouds the peaks of the neighbouring island of Kefalonia. From the coffee stop we then drove to the village of Exo Chora where there was the obligatory stop at the craft market to sample (and buy) the local food and drinks. Exo Chora is also home to a 2,000 year old Olive Tree that most of the group found more interesting, along with the architecture of the village which was one of the few to not suffer too badly in the 1953 earthquake and is still in essence a Venetian village.

From Exo Chora it was back on the bus for the drive over to the North West coast and the Shipwreck Beach. In 1980 a ship involved in cigarette smuggling ran into trouble and was eventually crashed onto the beach below very steep cliffs. The only way onto or off the beach is via the sea and consequently it wasn’t possible to clear the ship so over time it has become the unofficial symbol of the island. The cliffs are unstable, so it’s not possible to go onto the beach from the sea any longer as cliff falls have already injured some swimmers – in fact a lot of the damage to the ship has been from cliff falls rather than the sea.

In the original itinerary we were supposed to now drive the short distance to a nearby port to pick up the boat to visit the Shipwreck beach from the sea and then head round to the Blue Caves, but the sea swell meant that ships couldn’t leave that harbour so instead we set off to drive across the island to the port at Agios Nikolaos right by the Blue Caves and just visit them.

After boarding the boat and heading towards the caves the captain announced that he was confident he could take on the increasing swell and get us round to shipwreck beach so he put the throttle to max and we headed out into pretty rough seas pitching and rolling for about 25 minutes until we finally reached Shipwreck beach, just as a massive thunderstorm came over with torrential rain soaking everyone on board and the boat lurching around precariously on the waves – it was certainly an experience. The captain did have the good sense to wait out the worst of the storm in the bay and the seas were a little calmer as we returned to the Blue Caves to look around them, but with the waters still quite choppy and everyone hungry for the now quite delayed lunch it was decided to skip the 20 minute swim stop and head back to port.

Safely back on land we headed back up into the hills to the small village of Anafonitria for a very pleasant lunch and a quick look around the historic monastery before heading back down to the coast and to the Xigia Sulphur Beach to experience that. The beach is home to some sulphur springs that are claimed to give the water beneficial qualities, but the main effect is the slight whiff of eggs in the air. Some of the group took this opportunity to have a swim off this beach, though the springs bring the temperature of the water down, so after a quick paddle I decided not to join them and instead head up to the beach café for a much nicer and warmer cup of Greek coffee.

The sulphur beach was the final stop of the tour and from there the bus made the 45 minute journey back down to the south of the island to start hotel drop-offs, getting me back to the hotel a little after 6pm, which left just enough time to get an actual swim in the hotel pool before having a shower and then heading to dinner.