We moved 11km. south from Desimi Beach to the small resort of Vasiliki, a short drive but a spectacular one. There is little in the way of flat land in Lefkada; everywhere you look mountains drop straight into the sea.
Though the road was one hairpin pin bend after another with sudden sharp gradients in-between, the surface loose or pot-holed in places, at least it wasn't single track.
Dropping down into Vasiliki we rounded a bend, momentarily a semicircle of dark green mountains with pale grey peaks confronted us; beneath them a small fertile valley of olive groves, fruit farms and smallholdings; it was a vision of perfection, a land of plenty. "Isn't this what humans are designed for?" I asked myself.
Vasiliki itself has an old village centre that is now surrounded by a low density sprawl of apartments, small hotels and aquatic sports shops. The latter are the giveaway, Vasiliki's USP is the eddy which forms around the bay's western headland, turning a once obscure fishing village into a hot spot for wind surfing.
This was explained to us back in Plataria by the British guy who had just arrived in Greece via Albania. He too was heading for Vasiliki, but for him it was a bit of a pilgrimage. He had first visited here in 1987 as a wind-surfing pioneer and returned a further six times, the last time in 2006. We bumped into him and his wife again soon after we arrived in Camping Vasiliki Beach. They must have just arrived too as he had not got further than the site yet. I sensed a slight trepidation in his voice as he mused, "I know the place will have changed, when I first came it was all dirt tracks, a lot happened to me here, I've seen the sunrise a few times from those harbour bars..." Ah the the dubious allure of the all-nighter, the bitter sweetness of lost youth!
It is true the place is now quite developed, but it's hardly over-developed. The old village at the eastern end of the bay has spread forming an arc of bars, tavernas and gift shops, most with rooms to let above. The yacht marina is a relatively new development too apparently.
A curve of slightly scruffy sand dotted with beach umbrellas and hired sunbeds separates the old village from Ponti, another small settlement about 750m to the west. It's here where all the wind surf action happens. The shoreline is lined with hire companies. Rows of wooden racks in wire cages store hundreds of furled windsurf sails resembling a Victorian lepidopterist's display case on a gargantuan scale. On a breezy day in mid-August the whole bay must fill with multi-coloured sails criss-crossing the blue water like a swarm of jazzy sea-moths
The bars at this end of the beach seem cooler, with a younger Ibiza style vibe. Vasiliki attracts a mixed bunch, we much prefer that to the site at Desimi beach which is a magnet for the recently retired of northern Europe - who wants to be surrounded by people as old as yourself?
As for Vasiliki Beach Camping, it would get five stars in any compendium of decrepit Greek campsites, it ticked all the boxes: toilets that barely flush, tepid showers specialising in a sidewards spray, a bio-hazard for a chemical WC emptying point, zero recycling, pitches infested with mossies and wasps... In the past you might console yourself that at least the sites were cheap, you could tour Greece for next to nothing, the beach bum vibe was all part of the charm. Not so these days, in most places we have paid €25 plus per night, more than the average in Spain or Portugal out of high season.
So we won't be back? Well, it's not that simple, there are some positive aspects too. The site is located in a small patch of woodland with Mediterranean oaks and other broad leafed trees as well as olives. For some reason the local sparrows were very friendly and our spot featured a resident woodpecker.
The pitches were large and not regimented, so you felt you were camping in nature even though the beach was within easy walking distance and outside the front gate there was a well stocked local supermarket and an excellent local bakery.
Because Vasiliki is an outdoorsy kind of place the site has a mixed clientele, attracting visitors from across Eastern Europe and the Balkans as well as the usual venerable westerners in gleaming Hymers. It was amusing to observe around us the evolution of the lesser spotted European camper. Starting with the more youthful, there were a few late-teens in tents, then couples a few years older in small VW campervans, most with sports gear, some using electric scooters to get about- a form of weaponised secondary transport.
Jump five years forward, people now had acquired bigger campervans but also a toddler and a baby in tow. Sometimes it was painful to watch as they struggled with the challenges of camping with little ones. We have been there, we salute you! Now a gap, very few forty somethings - I guess they're all at home in mid September because their kids are in school. Next in proper motorhomes, big and small, venerable or swanky, older couples, some snatching a well earned break from work, others, greyer, balder and more portly, now retired and here for the duration, most with electric bikes, others with Vespas.
Singletons? Yes, of course, but not many - a lone man with his small tent and gleaming Kawasaki, a woman with a friendly cockapoo in a vintage VW camper. Compared to Iberia there were far fewer same sex couples, it could be a coincidence, or reflect that Greece remains quite a traditional culture, outside of urban areas and package tourist hotspots it does not feel particularly liberal or progressive. So, Vasiliki Camping, a bit of a dump but attractive with a great mix of campers - much more our thing than some grey-haired enclave.
Vasiliki itself grew on us too. At first sight it looks a bit scrappy, but many Greek places do, they are not neat and tidy. However even in the shoulder season it has a buzz. We had lunch in one of the harbour side tavernas, sharing two starters between us, lightly fried zucchini chips - tempura style almost - and stuffed tomatoes.
Raiding the 'appetizer menu' is a good ploy in places where 'small plates' or tapas are not a thing. We had a good light lunch with a harbour view.
The place also satisfied my latest minor obsession with the iconography of Greek Tavernas, I began a collection of images featuring the differing types of dining chairs back -
Ladder back with hand-hole or St. Andrew's Cross:
Spindle:
What I love are the minor details, how decades - generations maybe - of everyday use is accreted into traditional design. Look how in the first example the lower edge of the top spar has been chamfered so you can better grasp the chair back through the hand-hole. There is something about that small human touch that delights me. We have always thought ergonomically, really UX design is just the latest iteration of our innate toolmaking capacity.
Even on a bright blue day the two islands on the horizon appeared grey, misty and slightly mysterious looking. The larger one southwest of Vasiliki is Kefalonia, the smaller to the east, Ithaca.
Perhaps I mentioned in the previous post that I am re-reading the Odyssey at the moment. However, it's over twenty years since the last time I read it. I've changed, moreover, the Emily Wilson translation I'm reading has a more contemporary feel, it is more inclusive and grounded than more traditional versions, so in some ways it is like discovering the book anew. It cannot be mere coincidences that I have reached the climatic fight between Odysseus and the suitors with a view of Ithaca in the distance.
Sadly it also has to be the work of the Fates that this misty view is the closest am going to get to Odysseus's homeland. Maybe it's better for it to remain vague and half imagined. It would have been nice to set foot on it, but perhaps it would be disillusioning, to have lunch in the Odyssea Taverna on the harbourside at Fiskes, serenaded by some bouzouki maestro's greatest hits, with a view of a German catamaran and Kiki's supermarket next door. Anyhow, I'll never know, it's not possible to take a day trip from Lefkada to Ithaca without joining an overpriced, over-organised 'three island experience ' tour.
What we managed to do was to get a beautiful view of the island without it being framed by Vasiliki's harbourside tavernas or glimpsed through a flotilla of moored yachts. The road that runs from Vasiliki along the western shore of Lefkada is even steeper, narrower and more hazardous than the one we took from Desimi..
Not an option for cycling. However, on the detailed map of the Ionian Islands that Gill bought, just beyond Ponti, where the west coast road bends sharply then heads straight up a mountain a small black line carries straight on squiggling along the rocky shoreline, some kind of track we supposed. So we off-loaded the bikes and headed off to explore.
Yes, there was a track and just about do-able, even for us, committed as we are to the spirit of non-adventure.
Five minutes in and we were alone, across the quiet sea - misty Ithaca, silence, wild sage perfuming the roadside, the red globules of mastic flowers set like rubies against the outrageously blue water.
The Odyssey is a powerful book, absorbing and elemental. I felt ridiculous, but I felt a pang of emotion when I stared at Ithaca across the narrow straights, thankful Odysseus made it home.
I wrote about the Odyssey after I read it for the first time. Usually it's unwise to revisit stuff you wrote decades ago, it can be annoying, often embarrassing, but when we got back to the van I felt impelled to seek it out.
Notes from an Italian Journey
I left Livorno in a sapphire dawn.
White mountains, crumpled like a thrown back sheet
recede; as softly daylight fades to fawn
I sail alone into the sullen heat.
Last night, your dark eyes shone. I remember
reflected in a glass of spicy red,
yellow candlelight—a crimson ember.
You laughed. I conjectured—how soon till bed.
Noon: dolphins leap across the bow wave's foam,
Capraia passes, barren and treeless.
I think of how bewildered Ulysses,
captured by Calypso, still yearned for home.
Beyond love lies no cosy solitude,
just empty chaos, where dark matters brood.
Looking back at it now, the air of angsty regret that pervades my poem, it all seems a bit male menopausal. Clearly when I read the Odyssey in my mid -forties it was the main protagonist's predicament that I identified with. This time I felt Penelope is shown to be equally heroic. To some extent that might be down to the translation. Emily Wilson states in the introduction that she aimed to give proper consideration to all the characters, not just the boys. I think she succeeds, and the story seems better balanced and nuanced because of it.
However Penelope as co-hero is not merely some trick of interpretation, it is stated overtly in Book 24, the Odyssey's slightly odd epilogue. The ghost of Agamemnon sums things up nicely.
Home is not found in a place but in sound fruitful relationships based on wisdom and intelligence. Balance too, like Yin and Yang.
These past few days beside the warm Ionian sea have been special, I feel very at home here, just me, Gill and a clutch of ancient deities and heroes. I am happier than I have been in a while, a little fitter too.
Life can be good.
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