Greek Zakynthos. The island of White Cliffs is an ideal place for a family vacation with children

The west coasts of Corfu, Lefkada and Zakynthos are formed by high white cliffs with bays, whose azure water plays with pebbles and fine white sand. On the coast there is a nice fishing village with a reasonable amount of accommodation. The east of the islands is then generally more accessible, and therefore succumbed to the construction of resorts. The streets are full of bars and discos, inflatable toy shops and souvenirs, and day and night it lives here.

On Zakynthos, the sunniest of all the Greek islands, all holiday activity is concentrated along Lagan Bay and within a radius of 20 kilometers from the port city of Zakynthos. The west coast is too rocky for settlement, so we head to the quiet and picturesque northeastern part of the island. Here you will develop tasteful accommodation in renovated hotel-type villas with magnificent sea views.

The island is a great place to discover. The terrain of the island varies from fertile lowlands in the east to mountains in the west. We can search for and explore centuries-old villages and monasteries, olive groves and hills covered with dense myrtle, laurel, jasmine and hibiscus, as well as herbs, the most fragrant of which are thyme and juniper.

Micro Nisi and Little Xigya beach

The old fishing village of Micro Nisi is made up of a cape with about a dozen houses. We have dinner on one of the three lighted terraces of the restaurant of the same name. Overlooking the small harbor bay, we taste marinated shrimp with Greek salad and after the meal we go to the sea to enjoy the wine in comfortable wicker chairs. The silence is broken only by the splashing of waves on the wooden pier.

There is a tasteful small hotel right in the village, several luxury villas are located about a kilometer to the north - above the bay, which houses two small pebble beaches separated by a rocky promontory. You can swim safely from one to the other. Below the surface, a world of bluish rocks falling to a dark bottom opens up, and here and there we meet a rainbow fish. The northern and nicer of the two beaches is also ideal for children's explorers - it has a shallow lagoon full of underwater life right on the shore and a cave on the other side. If we continue north, we will swim to the bay with fallen stones, which created natural pools, a little further on, the rock steps are ideal for diving into the sea.

One of Zakynthus's most beautiful beaches lies just five kilometers south of Micro Nisi. On Little Xigya we descend many steep stairs from a stall called Magda Tavern. A funny cable car runs along the stairs, providing easy snacks on the beach. We are ordering a gyros, an attractive young lady mumbles something into a walkie-talkie, and after a while a wicker basket with our order goes down. There are actually three beaches. The northernmost is easy to swim, is wide, hidden under a wooded hill and has a minimum of people. The smaller beach near the cable car is relatively narrow and is divided into two bays by a rock in the sea, which leads to a pebble embankment. The right part is ideal for children, because the sea has carved a shallow natural pool into the rock, safely bounded by flat stones from the open sea. The sea here is ideal for snorkeling. If we take a pastry for fish, a lot of them will come to us.

Askos stone park and Cape Skinari

In the mountain village of Varvara, about five kilometers from Micro Nisi, the family farm has become a small zoo and a kind of improvised museum of Mediterranean agriculture. We first enter the fallow deer enclosure. We can throw them some grain and let them bite the olive branch, for which they will be happy to accompany us through the cypress forest covering the side of the park. Several terraces are created in the valley, on which all kinds of fruits are grown and goats, pigs, sheep and cows rest in the shade under the trees.

Children can ride a pony or pet one of the giant tortoises. There are also remains of the original stone sheds and wells. We walk through the roar of cicadas in the shade of old olive trees, and while the children enjoy the animals, we quite easily get used to the times when every meter of the beautiful, albeit a bit inhospitable, landscape was used. Unfortunately, today in the rocky hills of the Greek islands we usually see only abandoned buildings and barely noticeable terraces of once functioning terrace fields.

Cape Skinari is the northernmost tip of the island. A road leads here through the tourist port town of Agios Nikolaos and the half-forgotten mountain settlement of Korithi. A lighthouse rises at the tip of the cape and offers views of the Enos Mountains on the neighboring island of Kefalonia. A little further east there are two beautifully reconstructed windmills. Like us, they look down from immense heights on golden white cliffs and boats sailing the waves of the azure blue sea. We will go down perhaps a hundred steps and swim in the blue. Or just relax hanging in the hammock of a local tavern and let yourself be swayed by a cool breeze.

The mountain village of Volimes hides a beautiful beach

We continue to the mountain village of Volimes, but just before it we turn right around the cemetery on a small asphalt road towards the well-hidden Atsínganos beach. The road winds between hills overgrown with lush greenery to the edge of the island and then descends in a few bends to the sea. There are more and more beautiful views of the rocks forming the wild coast and the lush forest, which falls to the bay where the road ends. In order to get to the beautiful beach under a high cliff, it is necessary to swim around the rock. The reward is great snorkeling, exploration of two through caves on the shore and a pleasant afternoon sun. If we have an inflatable boat and a paddle with us, we can paddle from here along the northern coast full of wild bays, hidden beaches and rocky islands thrown far into the sea.

The sun is setting and the golden rocks are falling into the sea as we arrive at a view of Navagio Bay and Beach. The view from the 200-meter-high rocky promontory is stunning. Bays eroded by waves and erosion cut deep into the mainland, from which a thin promontory extends into the sea. Perhaps to make the beach in the bay even more attractive, a smuggling ship sank on it in the early 1980s.

The mountain village of Volimes has over a thousand inhabitants and is the administrative center of the north of the island. Inside the winding streets, the historic center with churches and bell towers and old, sometimes dilapidated, sometimes nicely reconstructed houses has been preserved. However, the village became famous for its soft "ladotýri" cheese, lace-making, weaving and the sale of traditional agricultural products. In Ano Volimes there is an exceptional restaurant Kaminaki, where we taste deliciously prepared island delicacies: grilled vegetables with feta cheese or souvlaki.

Discover the cliffs of Zakynthos from the sea

The most beautiful nature has prepared for our eyes on Zakynthos is its north and northeast coasts. The ribs of limestone cliffs fall hundreds of meters into the sea waves, hiding dozens of bays with several white-white beaches accessible only from the sea.

All this splendor is properly exploited commercially. The seashore is sailed by large ships that leave the capital for day cruises with a disco or a pirate program for children. Smaller boats full of tourists then depart from Agios Nikolaos and Porto Vromi. We want to have a more intimate ride, so we take a water taxi from Cape Skinari. The boat passes with us through the rock gates and blue caves, which play in all shades of blue thanks to the morning light. In the other direction, the boat rushes to Navagio beach with us to carefully climb through the rusted wreck. The bay is beautiful, the beach is golden, the water is turquoise. Unfortunately, during the day, several thousand tourists take turns here, bringing in, dropping out for an hour and taking dozens of noisy boats moored in a relatively tight bay for an hour.

So if we really want to enjoy the north coast, let's rent a private yacht and set out from Skinari on a two-day cruise along the north coast. Let's stop swimming in the bays that catch our eye, swim around the scattered rocks at the coast and finally anchor in Navagio Bay to enjoy its beauty in peace late at night and early in the morning.

Vasilikos Peninsula: Mount Skopos and Turtle Beach Gerakas

During the trip to the south we stop only briefly in the city of Zakynthos. Beneath the ruins of the Venetian fortress lies the village of Bóchali, from which there is a nice view of the capital and the bay. The port is full of yacht masts, between which a ferry from Kyllini, Peloponnese, runs every two hours. The waterfront is decorated with the large church of Agios Dionýsios and a number of exhibition apartment buildings.

We continue south, towards Ano Vasilikos, and pass through a continuous development of hotels, bars and restaurants, decorated with all kinds of souvenirs. After about five kilometers from the mumble, we turn off at the "Skopos" sign onto a difficult dirt road and walk first through a green rocky valley, then in a few turns along a dry slope up to the top with a transmitter. The dirt road ends at a small tavern, from where it is only a short walk away. We walk through an olive grove and the first thing that amazes us is the large stone dome of the recently reconstructed church and the entrance portal with a bell tower. Of the medieval Byzantine fortified monastery of Panagia Skopiotissa, which was built on the foundations of an older ancient temple, only the foundations and one residential tower remain. The monastery stands in a saddle between two hills - the rocky northern peak reaches a height of almost 500 meters and from the viewpoint you can overlook a large part of the southern part of the island.

We continue along the popular beaches of Porto Zoro and Banana beach to the end of the road to Gerakas beach, just behind Ano Volimes. There is an 800-meter-wide bay of sandy beach and very slow sea, the backdrop of the place is provided by an impressive rock formed by white and yellow sandstone. Gerakas Beach and the entire Lagan Bay belong to the Zakynthos National Marine Park, which was established to protect the Mediterranean seal, which inhabits the inaccessible island of Peluzo, and the world-famous common card nest. Ideal for children and their sand castles, Gerakas Beach is open during the day, but is not allowed at night. Every day, the park staff inspects the nests, which are marked with wooden stands. The turtles come here from May to August, dig a hole about half a meter deep and lay an average of 120 eggs the size of a ping pong ball. Five-inch turtles with the club after an average of two months and usually at night then rush to the sea.

The island of Marathonisi, located in the western part of the Gulf of Lagan from here, resembles a huge turtle in shape. Maybe that's why the cards liked him and laid eggs on his tip with white sand. The far side of the island is rocky with bays and caves. We can get to the "turtle island" by boat from the nearby resorts of Agios Sostis or Laganas.

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