The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned – My Trip to Zakynthos. Here is a look into how I spent two weeks in Zakynthos, Greece.
Well, August is always my favourite month of the year. It is usually when I will be visiting my favourite country: Greece!. This year was no different and we took a family trip to the beautiful Ionian Island of Zakynthos or otherwise known as Zante. Two glorious weeks in Zakynthos and the Greek sunshine!
Above you can see a video of our two-week trip and below I will add pictures and provide a little breakdown of what we got up to.
Zakynthos / Zante
So Zakynthos is the third-largest island of the Ionian, and this trip was our 5th visit to the island. The last time we visited was around 9 years ago, so we were not quite sure what to expect; whether the place we were staying had changed dramatically. We stayed in the resort of Tsilivi, which also has the name of Planos. This is in the North East of the island.
Two Weeks in Zakynthos – A wedding
The main reason for our trip was to attend and celebrate a friend of the family’s wedding day, which they had decided to have at The Balcony Hotel. This hotel was beautiful for the day and has amazing views of Tsilivi. It really was a perfect spot for the lovely couple’s wedding There was a restaurant part of the hotel where you could visit just for a meal if you liked and did not need to be a hotel guest.
Now the day was brilliant, and the sun truly did shine. This time Greece was experiencing a heatwave, so it was incredibly hot waiting outside for the bride to arrive. The drinks offered before and after the reception definitely helped with this. Luckily there was a bit of a breeze too, which helped in cooling us down. As the day went on, in the distance you could see the orange glow and smoke clouds of the many wildfires that were ravaging the north side of the island. There were around 15 wildfires happening at one point. Some of these being started deliberately, which is just awful.
The wedding reception:
The wedding day was our second full day in Zakynthos so we were acclimatising well to the heat at this point, and I think my little trip to Parga definitely helped prepare my skin for more Greek sun.
During the reception, the bride and groom had organised for Greek dancers to attend for those of the wedding party who have not experienced Greek dancing before. As usual, I was the lucky volunteer to dance on several occasions. I don’t know how I end up getting myself in these situations! It was really fun though. Luckily they did not select me to be lifted and spun around. I have been unlucky with this at previous Greek dancing experience.
Here are a few pictures from the day. I have decided not to post of the happy couple but rather the scenery and maybe the odd one of myself :
Two Weeks in Zakynthos – Exploring
So after the wedding, we had practically two weeks of relaxing and doing a little bit of exploring. As this was our 5th visit to the island, we did not visit the attractions that Zakynthos is most probably famous for – Navagio Beach (Shipwreck), the blue caves and turtle island/turtle spotting.
We were staying in a different part of Tsilivi than usual. To our surprise, we discovered a little harbour filled with fishing boats and boat rentals. It was a lovely walk along the beach and around to this part. There was also a ruin of a building up on the hill, which you could see from way down on the beach, and we decided to aim for there. This is actually an old Venetian watchtower. The views back over Tsilivi beach are beautiful from this viewpoint.
Since our last visit, there has been a water park built just on the outskirts of the centre of Tsilivi. It is part of one of the bigger all-inclusive hotels. We had a great day out here. I loved the lazy river going around the water park. I also really enjoyed the large bucket that filled and emptied over the children’s slides. Standing nearby would result in a complete soaking. It’s amazing how much fun water can be! The best part was the happy hour though – €2 for a spirit and mixer, which was definitely more spirit than a mixer!
Two Weeks in Zakynthos – Visiting Olympia
During our second week of the trip we organised to go on two trips; Olympia and Bochali/Winery and Zakynthos town.
Both of these trips were wonderful in their own right and were completely different from each other.
I had been planning to take a trip to the mainland to visit the Archaeological site of Ancient Olympia – The birthplace of the Olympics. It is fair to say that this trip did not disappoint! I took so many photos and videos as I was in awe of all the ruins on the site. It is so surreal to know once upon a time there were people actively training and competing in the games here. I still can’t quite believe that I have managed to visit. I don’t think I can fully describe the site in this small part of this post, so I am aiming to write a further post just on Olympia, where I can hopefully fully encapture the day we had there, and hopefully recall some of the histories of the site.
Here are a few pictures from the trip:
Two weeks in Zakynthos – Zante by night:
So this trip was by Nefis Travel and we were to visit a few places in Zakynthos for the evening. 5.30 p.m. was the pick-up time and onto the first stop…
Solomos Winery
Solomos Winery is located not too far away from Tsilivi, and it did not take us long to arrive. Now we had already sampled a few of the wines in the tavernas we frequented throughout the holiday and bought a few bottles from the supermarket before this trip, so we knew we would definitely enjoy tasting their wines.
To start you have a tour of the winery, including down into the cellar area where they store the barrels. It was really interesting to hear about the different types of wine that they produce, and how they do this.
The best part of the tour was the wine tasting (obviously). This wasn’t your average set amount of glasses with a tiny mouthful sort of wine tasting…this was a pour yourself a glass type of wine tasting. 15 bottles of wines, olive oil to taste, and preserved raisin to taste. It was the best wine tasting I had been to, and it is safe to say everyone on the trip left with a big smile on their faces (and maybe a slight wobble in their step). I would highly recommend visiting this winery, and if not at least purchasing a bottle or several of their wines available in the local supermarkets.
Two Weeks in Zakynthos – Bochali Village:
After the winery, the next stop was to the beautiful village Bochali (Μπóχαλη), or the Balcony of Zakynthos. The views from this little village are truly beautiful and breathtaking, overlooking Zakynthos Town and even down to the village/ resort of Argassi.
We stayed here for about half an hour to take in the views, grab a refreshment and/or have a look at the beautiful small church Panagia Chrysopigi. This church is dedicated to The Virgin Mary and has beautiful icons dedicated to her. I am always amazed by how beautiful the churches are in Greece, both inside and out.
Here are a few pics from Bochali:
Zakynthos Town:
So after the lovely Bochali village, we headed on down to Zakynthos Town. We have visited here a few times before. A lot appears to have changed. The buildings in Zakynthos town are of Venetian design, however, most of the buildings you see today are quite new, as a very powerful earthquake hit in 1953 flattening all but a few of the buildings.
There are a few squares to visit in the town- Solomos Square and San Marco Square and of course a handful of beautiful churches. The biggest church is St Dionysios (St Dennis), who happens to be the patron saint of Zakynthos. We sadly missed the annual festival celebrating. This is on 24th August every year, with his preserved body paraded around the town in a glass coffin. Another church in town is St Nicholas, which withstood damage from the 1953 earthquake. Apparently, the Patron saint served in this church, and one of his robes is preserved there too.
There are also several references to Dionysios Solomos around the town. He was a famous Greek poet whose Ode to Liberty is now the National Greek Anthem.
Exploring Zakynthos Town
We had a bit of a nosey around the town, looking through the vast shops that are always open late into the evening. Along the way, there was a busker on the street, where we watched from a nearby cafe. He was great to watch, and you could tell he was passionate about his music.
Our guide told us about one of the restaurants which has a singing owner ‘Greek Pavarotti’, so we had to check it out. He normally serenades his guests whilst they eat. We thought we would give this place a go (can you tell we like a bit of live music!). The food here was lovely and the singing owner even better. My favourite is the famous “la la la” song of Greece- Siko Xorepse Sirtaki.
So that was a bit of a round-up of my trip to the beautiful Greek island of Zakynthos. I took hundreds of photos from the trip and it was so hard to choose which ones to post here.
Hope you enjoyed reading and looking at my antics from the holiday. Here’s to the next trip away!
Have you had a trip to Zakynthos? What did you think of the island?
Thanks for reading,
