Early Summer in the Ionians

“Summer has arrived with a bang!” Lily’s first words as she picked us up from Preveza Airport, the sun beating down while we stuffed our luggage into the back of her car.  It’s early June but feels like mid-August, blasts of heat forcing us out of our London attire. Our jackets weren’t to be seen for the rest of the week. We hit the road immediately after our mandatory freddo cappuccino – the true sign that you’ve arrived in Greece – to uncover new territories.

After 15 minutes of driving, we had already reached the threshold of Lefkada. “The fact that its connected to the rest of Greece by a bridge gives us breath,” says Lily gesticulating towards her chest, acting out the depth of this weightlessness. “It’s less claustrophobic.” She gets to enjoy the best of both worlds; island life through and through but with the chance to access all the conveniences of the mainland. After childhood holidays to Lefkada, Lily left her home in the Netherlands 20 years ago to create a new one here. There is a strong ex pat community, many of whom found their way there through sailing. These aren’t individuals who are coming for a season or two to live their own ‘Eat Pray Love’ adventure in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean. They have all fallen in love with the island (or one of the islanders), have built homes, families and careers here. Like millennia old olive trees, Lefkada and Meganissi are places where you grow enduring roots. 

Lefkada and Meganisi are found in an island cluster known as the Ionians. They are the two destinations we were to explore in a week. They don’t encapsulate that typical image of Greek island living. There are no whitewashed sugarcube houses cascading down clifftops, no party towns that magnetise the it-crowds every August, landscapes aren’t arid and crater like. Those destinations are found in the Cycladic islands. Instead, the Ionian islands are verdant, luscious, and mountainous. The pace of life feels slow and the islanders live with one foot in land and one in the sea (the sailing community is fierce). The locals of Lefkada and Meganisi whom we met all claimed that this was the real Greece. I had no doubts that their counterparts in the Cycladics would suggest otherwise.  

Our first day on Lefkada took us down the entire eastern coast from Lefkada Town which didn’t capture our hearts to the little port town of Sivota Bay which did. We were there on business, meeting villa owners in their abodes and hearing the stories behind their homes on the island. They came from all walks of life and all corners of the world but shared the common love for Lefkada and its patient soul. As the day drew to a close, my impatience to jump into the sea however had reached its limit and the minute we arrived at our villa overlooking the bay of Desimi, I raced to our little jetty. The sun was setting and the colour of the water was an inky blue. The rocks that faced me on the other side of the bay glowed from the last bursts of light. 

Now it felt like summer had truly begun. Washing the salt off my body and changing into a linen dress before enjoying a glass of crips local wine and oregano chips on our terrace. Lefkada had defrosted me just like that. We later strolled down to Desimi with its two tavernas that overlooked the water. The bay had filled with sailing boats that were mooring for the night, a few children were still playing in the gently lapping waters, and their parents were enjoying a beer on the shore. This felt like a snapshot of real life here: a conscious calm pervades. 

We had been officially baptised by the waters of Lefkada and had no choice but to continue the blessings with its delicacies. We filled our table with crispy zucchini fritters, juicy Greek salads, creamy taramasalata, fragrant prawn saganaki, perfectly grilled chicken kebab, and more Lefkadan wine, the colour of a cloudy ruby. Since we were on the east, we didn’t get to see the sunset. But once dusk had arrived an orange full moon crept out from behind the island’s craggy mountains and its reflection shivered in the gently rippling waters.

Lefkada and Meganisi are separated by a 20-minute hydrofoil which we hopped on the next morning (freddo cappuccino once again consumed). The island’s proximity belies their similarity. Meganisi feels even quieter. Indeed, facilities are more limited with no major hospital or high school, meaning that teenagers have the charmed existence of getting to school in Lefkada by boat each morning. As we zipped toward Meganisi, we passed other smaller islets. Our skipper pointed out Skorpios, Greece’s first privately owned island purchased by Aristotle Onassis, Jackie Kennedy’s first husband. The Ionians are laid back but there is wealth tucked into its nooks.

Robyn met us at Meganisi’s port. She was another expat harking from Northumberland who had settled here 12 years before. As we hopped in her little red Fiat and drove through the island, every car that passed honked at her in recognition. “You get to know people quite quickly here,” she laughed. Not surprising when the total permanent population is just over 1000 (versus Lefkada’s 25,000). 

We zipped from business meeting to business meeting which took place on private pontoons, on panoramic roof terraces, on state-of-the-art yachts and next to infinity pools. It gave us a sense of the island and the variety of figures whom it attracts. The common thread between the uber luxury and the quaintly charming, is the pull to the sea. It appears that nobody in Meganisi is unfamiliar with how to sail. One villa owner who we met had even purchased a plot of land after mooring for just one quick lunch on the island seven years ago. That’s the effect of the Ionians. 

It was then our own turn to test the waters. At lunch, we scooted back to the port and were picked up by a Motor Rib steered by Stefanos and his wife, Anastasia. Born and bred in Lefkada, they knew every corner of the lands and seas which surrounded us. We benefitted from this knowledge and rode from one secluded bay to the next, even mooring within a grotto where a WWII submarine was once hidden from the enemy and where we swam among the bats. 

For the rest of the week, we went on e-bike tour throughout the mountains, swam at the iconic beach of Porto Katsiki, indulged in the famous lentils of Lefkada, drank coffee among the locals in the shaded squares of cooling hilltop towns, and strolled through the quiet ports that dotted the coasts. But it’s true that the time spent in the sea gave me the biggest sense of the islands’ magnetism. From the shades of brilliant turquoise to the clearest indigo, the Ionian waters are hypnotic and you’ll struggle to be apart from them. Indeed, the common thread in the villas we visited was their proximity to the coast. By the end of the week, I understood why so many islanders had come here for a visit and ended up staying for a lifetime, not however to grow their roots but rather to moor their anchors.