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| Bells at Church at Monastery of St. Andrew, Cephalonia |
Our second island of the Ionian chain of Greek Islands was
Cephalonia, an island we had visited in 2008. Initially I had not planned
an excursion for here because we had done the underground Melissani Lake and
the Drogarati Cave and had visited Sami, where the movie Captain Corelli’s
Mandolin had been filmed, but I had some monetary credits from AAA, with
which we had booked the cruise, and if I didn’t use it, I’d lose it!
I had pre-booked most of my excursions before leaving home so as to spread
out the cost over a period of months. I hadn’t realized that we would be
getting the credits until after boarding the ship in March. Barb had
decided not to book anything because we had seen the biggest tourist attractions
in 2008 so I found the excursion Leisurely Cephalonia and it was short
and really did look easy, so I decided to book that one. “Leisurely” sounded
good to me because with so many ports day after day, it can be exhausting
rushing to do too much.
For some reason, I had remembered little about this island
from 2008 other than the three places mentioned above that we visited. I
remembered absolutely nothing about the port or the town of Argostoli where we
are docked. We had tendered in 2008 and were scheduled to tender this
year but there is now a dock where some smaller cruise ships may dock and
since no other cruise ships were in town today, we got the dock!
YEA!! One of the biggest advantages of cruising on the smallest ship of
the Holland America fleet is that it is able to get to smaller places than the
megaships can visit.
I was most pleasantly surprised with today’s tour because I
hadn’t remembered what a beautiful island it is. Bottom line is that I
was quite impressed with Cephalonia so was glad I hadn’t just puttered around
town which is what I had previously planned. While not the dramatic views
that Santorini and Mykonos have to offer or the exceptionally quaint villages
on those islands, nevertheless the countryside and the village were quite picturesque.
As a small island with a population today of about 40,000 of which about a
third of that population living in the port of Argostoli, it made it easy for
Cephalonia to fall under the sway of larger, more powerful countries. The
Roman Empire, Venice (for hundreds of years), and Britain (for over 50 years in
the 19th century), and currently Greece, governed Cephalonia. Thus the
influence of Venice and Italy are found on the island including some Italian
terms that are a part of the language. It suffered severe damage from
German bombing during World War II and then suffered a devastating earthquake
in 1953 which destroyed most of the island except for one village and a few
other structures.
The day had surprisingly dawned sunny and bright (a rare exception
to the last two weeks), but the sun gave way to clouds early in the
excursion. At least it didn’t rain at all! We climbed into the
mountains of Cephalonia and stopped in a small town called Kourkomelata which
had been destroyed by the 1953 earthquake. However it had been rebuilt by
a local benefactor who not only rebuilt his own home but those of the other
villagers. The village was charming and the church and its setting drew
the picture takers on our bus. Likewise, the countryside scene from the
village was excellent. Then we went to the Monastery of St. Andrew for
another photo stop. We were admitted to two of the churches in the small
complex. One was more exquisite from the outside and the other on the
interior. The other chapel, while quite plan on the outside, revealed a
beautiful, ornate interior. It was there that we could view a rather
bizarre relic that was on display – what is supposedly is the right sole
of St. Andrew’s foot! He had been crucified but said he wasn’t worthy to
be crucified in the same way as Jesus Christ, so asked to be crucified upside
down. The reasonably small interior was magnificent and the guide
explained that it was traditional for the patron saint for whom a church or
monastery was named to be shown with his picture at the far right as one faces
front – thus St. Andrew was portrayed there. Second from the left
would be Mary with the infant Jesus, and the third picture would portray the
adult Christ. The setting here was really outstanding as well. Our
final stop, the least important for me was a visit to the Rombola
Winery. For me wineries are a waste of time and I went out and took a few
more pictures while waiting for the connoisseurs of great wine to render their
verdicts on the local wine. I am not complaining as it was the only
winery I’ve visited on the cruise so far and we weren’t there long.
In addition to the three specific stops we made, I
thoroughly enjoyed the great countryside and mountain scenery. Spring
flowers (some certainly flowering weeds) were in bloom in an array of color,
mostly yellow but I am pretty sure it wasn’t gorse, but also white, red, and
orange. There were quite a few poppy fields as well. The trees were
varied and beautiful too and many flowers (weeds) were to be found in the
rocky crags. From the mountain to the valley to the coast, the scenery
kept changing and was excellent. Our guide said the climate is pretty
temperate but that February and March were typically the worst months with cold
and rain, and that July and August can be oppressively hot and dry. The
rest of the months are generally good – our temps today were probably in
the comfortable 60s. There were several animals to be found, mostly sheep
and goats. I was hoping to snap a picture of several mountain goats on a
rocky cliff but just as I snapped from the bus, a big round sign appeared and
blocked the entire important part of the picture. Oh well. I just
don’t remember this island as having been so beautiful six years ago but
apparently we were more focused on the underground lake and the caves then and
not so focused on the great scenery.
After getting back to the ship and having a quick lunch, I
suggested that we might take Barb’s wheelchair and go into town for a little
while. it was a long pier but the chair wheeled easily on it, but what I
hadn’t seen as we returned by the bus was that many of the sidewalks were stone
and where sidewalks existed, they were narrow and cluttered with outside
souvenir displays. So after a while with Barb walking because the
sidewalk couldn’t handle wheelchairs, we turned around and went back to the
ship. She’d rather save her energy for some upcoming shore
excursions.
I found the day to be a very pleasant second trip to this
Ionian island and have a more favorable view now than my more neutral opinion
several years ago. The little known island of Gythion (where ancient
Sparta reigned in the days of conflict between Athens and Sparta) will be next,
tomorrow.
CT
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