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This lush green island with breathtaking beaches and crystal clear waters of greenish-blue colours will leave you speechless. Kefalonia glows in the Ionian Sea and carries a rich history in cultural tradition. It's the biggest Ionian Island and the green of its mountains blend with the blue of the water making it truly unique and a beloved destination. Pine, cypress and olive trees cover Mt. Ainos' peak, while at its foot you'll encounter vineyards where the popular Kefalonian Robola wine variety is produced.
If you happen to love snorkeling or diving then the island's amazing seabed will definitely satisfy you. You might even get the chance to encounter the rare, caretta caretta, sea turtles that take refuge here, as well as the monk seals monachus monachus. Kefalonia's culinary tradition, history, picturesque villages, upbeat nightlife and pristine beaches will make you fall in love with the island.
Katelios is a seaside village with a sand and shingle beach and is 32 km from the island's capital of Argostoli. Katelios is famous for its fresh fish tavernas. This rural setting is a paradise for lovers of nature, so if you enjoy walking, discovering rare plants and birds, bring some comfortable shoes and follow the local footpaths. Agia Barbara Beach is a beautiful sand and pebble beach 200m long and 15-20metres wide. Nearby, eucalyptus, pine trees and rose-bay bushes add to the tranquil beauty of the beach. The beach is accessible by foot, car and bicycle.
Stone Age remains have been found nearby in the Sakkos cave, in Skala and in the Mounda Bay area. At nearby Mavrata there is a tomb from the Mycenaean period while Roman remains visible just behind the main Agia Barbara beach indicate settlement in Kateleios over 2000 years ago. Although Mounda Bay is very shallow there is also some evidence that Kateleios was a port and trading centre during the Venetian period, witnessed by the remains of an old pier or mole in the bay. Like virtually all of Kefalonia (except the Fiskardo area), the villages were destroyed during the 1953 Ionian earthquake and have been rebuilt since. Remains of the old church bell-tower exist in Kateleios. Until quite recently Kato Kateleios was a small collection of fishermen’s houses and huts, some of which are still inhabited, and the main town was further up in the valley, at Ano Katelios. Tourism development in recent years saw the construction of restaurants, homes, and rented apartments near the sea-front, which is now considered to be the main settlement of Katelios. The bay of Katelios is a designated marine Natura 2000 site. Due to the shallow waters of the bay and the scattered reef outcrops, the flow of sea water is slower than surrounding waters, making it an ideal habitat for the protected sea grass Posidonia oceanica, which occupies a significant portion of the bay. The beach of Mounda, on the east of the bay and at a short distance from Katelios is a nesting area for the Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta). Sea turtle nests in this area have been monitored and protected since 1988, while an environmental station operates at the town's old school. Katelios is the only area on the island of Kefalonia with a river that has water flowing throughout the year. The small river flows from the hills around the area of Pastra. Until the middle 19th century, water mills were in regular use, and their remnants can still be seen between Pastra and Katelios.
The grandiosity of nature has created here a unique work of art. Once inside the cave, the visitor is instantly captivated by this remarkable workshop of the earth, where stalactites and stalagmites have been forming for thousands of years. The reflection of sunlight on the stalactites creates an unrealistic atmosphere. The cave contains a 44-m-long descending passageway that leads to a chamber of 30 x 40 m. The latter, decorated with multi-hued stalactites and stalagmites, is renowned for its excellent acoustics and is prearranged for concerts on a special platform which is along the back wall of the cave. Its domed roof is intact and is of a unique, magical formation. The Drogarati Cave is a rare geological phenomenon and attracts thousands of visitors.
The upper room is characterized by amazing stalactites and is called the “Royal Balcony”.Academic historians explaining the name of Cephallenia and reinforcing its cultural connections with Athens associates the island with the mythological figure of Cephalus, who helped Amphitryon of Mycenae in a war against the Taphians and Teleboans. He was rewarded with the island of Same, which accordingly came to be known as Cephallenia.
Cephalonia has also been suggested as the Homeric Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, rather than the smaller island bearing this name today. Robert Bittlestone, in his book Odysseus Unbound, has suggested that Paliki, now a peninsula of Cephalonia, was a separate island during the late Bronze Age, and it may be this which Homer was referring to when he described Ithaca. A project which started in the Summer of 2007 and lasted three years has examined this possibility. Cephalonia is also referenced in relation to the goddess Britomartis, as the location where she is said to have 'received divine honours from the inhabitants under the name of Laphria'.
According to archaeological findings Kefalonia was inhabited since 10.000 BC. Kefalonia was one of the first places in Greece to be inhabited, as shown by fossil plants, animals, bones, etc. found in Fiskardo and tools dating back to 50,000 BC discovered in Skala and Same (Sami). According to the famous Kefalonian archaeologist and professor Spiros N. Marinatos (1901 – 1974), all the conditions were present in Kefalonia to make it inhabitable. At a time when trade was in its infancy, one of these conditions was that the motherland itself produced everything necessary for survival. Kefalonia was the breadbasket of the other Ionian islands. It also produced olive oil, wine and fruit. Its vast forests provided plenty of timber to build ships and develop trade. During Mycenean times and the age of Homer, the island undoubtedly derived a good part of its wealth from the forest of Ainos. Recent research has proved that the columns in the palace at Knossos were made of Κefalonian Fir! This in turn proves the existence of trade. Moreover, Kefalonia’s geographical position made it a stepping-stone between East and West. The Kefalonian archaeologist and academic P. Kavadias stresses the similarity between the inhabitants of the colony of Fiskardo with peoples from neighbouring Epirus, the Peloponnese and southern Italy (Pelasgian tribes). From the pre-Mycenean and Mycenean tombs in Lakithra we may draw the conclusion that they were a bellicose people; anthropological examination of skulls has revealed that most of them had suffered repeated blows.
In the southwestern portion of the island, in the area of Leivathos, an ongoing archaeological field survey by the Irish Institute at Athens has discovered dozens of sites, with dates ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Venetian period.
From an archaeological point of view, Cephalonia is an extremely interesting island. Archaeological finds go back to 40,000 BC. Without doubt, the most important era for the island is the Mycenaean era, from approximately 1500–1100 B.C. The archaeological museum in Cephalonia’s capital, Argostoli – although small – is regarded as the most important museum in Greece for its exhibits from this era.
The most important archaeological discovery in Cephalonia (and indeed in Greece) of the past twenty years is that in 1991 of the Mycenaean tholos tomb at the outskirts of Tzanata, near Poros in southeastern Cephalonia (Municipality of Elios-Pronni) in a lovely setting of olive trees, cypresses and oaks. The tomb was erected around 1300 B.C; kings and highly ranked officials were buried in such tombs during the Mycenaean period. It constitutes the largest tholos tomb yet found in northwestern Greece and was excavated by archaeologist Lazaros Kolonas. The size of the tomb, the nature of the burial offerings found there, and its well-chosen position point to the existence of an important Mycenaean town in the vicinity.
In late 2006, a Roman grave complex was uncovered as the foundation of a new hotel was being excavated in Fiskardo. The remains date to the period between the 2nd century BC and the 4th century AD. Archaeologists described it as the most important find of its kind in the Ionian Islands. Inside the complex, five burial sites were found, including a large vaulted tomb and a stone coffin, along with gold earrings and rings, gold leaves that may have been attached to ceremonial clothing, glass and clay pots, bronze artefacts decorated with masks, a bronze lock, and bronze coins. The tomb had escaped the attention of grave robbers and remained undisturbed for thousands of years. In a tribute to Roman craftsmanship, when the tomb was opened, the stone door easily swung on its stone hinges. Very near to the tomb, a Roman theatre was discovered, so well preserved that the metal joints between the seats were still intact.
A dissertation published in 1987 claims that St. Paul, on his way from Palestine to Rome in AD 59, was shipwrecked and confined for three months not on Malta but on Cephalonia.[6][7]
It is quite apparent that the whole island was inhabited by the middle of the 11th century BC (organised burial grounds). That was about the time that Kefalos and the name Cephalonia appeared. Around 1300 BC, Achaeans from Arcadia and Trifyllia in the westen Peloponnese began to found colonies farther afield, in Crete, Cyprus and even Sicily. The Achaeans were a people who formerly had lived in Minyan Orchomenus in Thessaly which according to Homer was the most important city in Mycenean Greece. Some of them wound up in Kefalonia, bringing Mycenean civilisation, gods and heroes along with them. Finds from their settlements, the most thriving of which were in Crane, testify to links with the Peloponnese. From the middle of the 11th century up to the middle of the 8th century BC nothing has been found. After that the evidence points to continuous human presence on the island.
During the Middle Ages, the island was the center of the Byzantine theme of Cephallenia. After 1185 it became part of the County palatine of Kephalonia and Zakynthos under the Kingdom of Naples until its last Count Leonardo III Tocco was defeated and the island conquered by the Ottomans in 1479.
The Turkish rule lasted only until 1500, when Cephalonia was captured by a Spanish-Venetian army, a rare Venetian success in the Second Ottoman–Venetian War. From then on Cephalonia and Ithaca remained overseas colonies of the Venetian Republic until its very end, following the fate of the Ionian islands, completed by the capture of Lefkas from the Turks in 1684. The Treaty of Campoformio dismantling the Venetian Republic awarded the Ionian Islands to France, a French expeditionary force with boats captured in Venice taking control of the islands in June 1797.
From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the island was one of the largest exporters of currants in the world with Zakynthos, and owned a large shipping fleet, even commissioning ships from the Danzig shipyard. Its towns and villages were mostly built high on hilltops, to prevent attacks from raiding parties of pirates that sailed the Ionian Sea during the 1820s.
Venice was conquered by France in 1797 and Cephalonia, along with the other Ionian Islands, became part of the French départment of Ithaque. In the following year the French were forced to yield the Ionian Islands to a combined Russian and Turkish fleet. From 1799 to 1807, Cephalonia was part of the Septinsular Republic, nominally under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, but protected by Russia.
By the Tilsit Treaty in 1807, the Ionian Islands were ceded back to France, which remained in control until 1809. Then Great Britain mounted a blockade on the Ionian Islands as part of the war against Napoleon, and in September of that year they hoisted the British flag above the castle of Zakynthos. Cephalonia and Ithaca soon surrendered, and the British installed provisional governments. The treaty of Paris in 1815 recognised the United States of the Ionian Islands and decreed that it become a British protectorate. Colonel Charles Philippe de Bosset became provisional governor between 1810 and 1814. During this period he was credited with achieving many public works, including the Drapano Bridge.
A few years later resistance groups started to form. Although their energy in the early years was directed to supporting the Greeks in the revolution against the Turks, it soon started to turn towards the British. By 1848 the resistance movement was gaining strength and there were skirmishes with the British Army in Argostoli and Lixouri, which led to some relaxation in the laws and to freedom of the press. Union with Greece was now a declared aim, and by 1850, a growing restlessness resulted in even more skirmishes. Cephalonia, along with the other islands, were transferred to Greece in 1864 as a gesture of goodwill when the British-backed Prince William of Denmark became King George the First of the Hellenes.
In World War II, the island was occupied by Axis powers. Until late 1943, the occupying force was predominantly Italian - the 33rd Infantry Division Acqui plus Navy personnel totalled 12,000 men - but about 2,000 troops from Germany were also present. The island was largely spared the fighting, until the armistice with Italy concluded by the Allies in September 1943. Confusion followed on the island, as the Italians were hoping to return home, but German forces did not want the Italians' munitions to be used eventually against them; Italian forces were hesitant to turn over weapons for the same reason. As German reinforcements headed to the island the Italians dug in and, eventually, after a referendum among the soldiers as to surrender or battle, they fought against the new German invasion. The fighting came to a head at the siege of Argostoli, where the Italians held out. Ultimately the Germans prevailed, taking full control of the island. Approximately five thousand of the nine thousand surviving Italian soldiers were executed in reprisal by the German forces. The book Captain Corelli's Mandolin (which was later made into a film of the same name), is based on this story. While the war ended in central Europe in 1945, Cephalonia remained in a state of conflict due to the Greek Civil War. Peace returned to Greece and the island in 1949.
Cephalonia lies just to the east of a major tectonic fault, where the European plate meets the Aegean plate at a slip boundary. This is similar to the more famous San Andreas Fault. There are regular earthquakes along this fault.
A series of four earthquakes hit the island in August 1953, and caused major destruction, with virtually every house on the island destroyed. The third and most destructive of the quakes took place on August 12, 1953 at 09:24 UTC (11:24 local time), with a magnitude of 7.3 on the Richter scale. Its epicentre was directly below the southern tip of Cephalonia, and caused the entire island to be raised 60 cm (24 in) higher, where it remains, with evidence in water marks on rocks around the coastline.
The 1953 Ionian earthquake disaster caused huge destruction, with only regions in the north escaping the heaviest tremors and houses there remaining intact. Damage was estimated to run into tens of millions of dollars, equivalent to billions of drachmas, but the real damage to the economy occurred when residents left the island. An estimated 100,000 of the population of 125,000 left the island soon after, seeking a new life elsewhere.
The forest fire of the 1990s caused damage to the island's forests and bushes, especially a small scar north of Troianata, and a large area of damage extending from Kateleios north to west of Tzanata, ruining about 30 square kilometres (12 sq mi) of forest and bushes and resulting in the loss of some properties. The forest fire scar was visible for some years.
In mid-November 2003, an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale caused minor damage to business, residential property, and other buildings in and near Argostoli. Damages were in the €1,000,000 range.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 20, 2005, an early-morning earthquake shook the south-western part of the island, especially near Lixouri and nearby villages. The earthquake measured 4.9 on the Richter scale, and its epicentre was located off the island at sea. Service vehicles took care of the area, and no damage was reported. From January 24–26, 2006, a major snowstorm blanketed the entire island, causing extensive blackouts. The island was recently struck yet again by another forest fire in the south of the island, beginning on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 during an unusual heatwave, and spreading slowly. Firefighters along with helicopters and planes battled the blaze for some days and the spectacle frightened residents on that area of the island.
In 2011 the eight former municipalities of the island lost their independence to form one united municipality. After losing its role as the capital of the island in the 19th century, Lixouri lost also its role as a seat of a municipality after 500 years. The Technological Educational Institute of the Ionian Islands closed one faculty in Lixouri and one in Argostoli.
