Today we were up and ready to head out to drive around the island of Lefkada. This island is supposed to be a very touristy spot within Greece with many attractions; charter yacht bases, kite surfing, beaches and night life for all ages. You can hire all sorts of vehicles to get around the island including scooters and quad bikes; however we just stayed with our Citreon C5 even though it was a bit big. You can drive around the island in about 2-3hrs.
We started out by heading down the eastern side; where there are many inlets and mooring areas protected by the island and the other two island next to it. It seemed like a good layover for many long distance ocean cruisers in one particular inlet the stretched well into the island. We went to a waterfall half way down the coast with a rock pool at the bottom; the water was very cooling and refreshing. When we looked up at the top of the water fall (maybe 30m) there was a goat looking down at all the strange happenings below. We had lunch at the top of a huge hill overlooking a sheltered bay that was obviously a good place to pull your boat into; it seemed a bit like Vis Town on Vis Island in Croatia to me. And, you had a magnificent outlook to the SE away from Lefkada island. We counted 24 yachts way out to the horizon.
We then travelled around the SE corner of the island and then needed to find our way to Porto Kastiki; which is apparently the best beach on the Adriatic. However we turned too soon (even though the sign post indicated) and ended up on a very narrow winding road leading to the road that led to the southern tip of Lefkada and to Porto Kastiki. But the big citreon just made it around the hairpin switch backs and we made it to the road heading south. We drove for about 30mins until we reach the road that led 'down' to the bay, and this was even narrower than the other road but we made, even passing a cement truck on the way (interesting to say the least).
Porto Kastiki beach is overlooked by the cliffs that surround and is absolutely amazing. The water is beautifully clear and the cliffs very white. The beach is made up, as you expect, of pebble - by very very clean looking pebbles; which actually hurt our soft western feet to walk on. Words cannot describe this place it is absolutely magnificent (I will let the photo attempt to do it justice). We hired a couple of deck chairs and umbrella; order a couple of coffees from the boys who sent up to the restaurant above and relaxed and went for a swim.
After the refreshing swim and a good time relaxing we headed back up to the hot car and the drive back up the west coast to Lefkada town. Again the roads are very winding two thirds the way up the mountains overlooking little villages and very rocky shores; with the occassional rocky (pebbly) beach.