Kefalonia

[Stokey]

Hello, I'm after some recommendations for which part of the island to go to as we've never been before. We'll be self catering in the summer (hopefully!) & Would like to do 2 weeks, split into 2 different areas. We'll have a car & DDs are 9 & 11. We'd like to go to some beaches, maybe rent a boat for a few days, eat out if allowed, nothing too strenuous as imagine it'll be rather warm. Thanks!

If you want a beautiful sandy beach, the smaller resorts like Avithos, Trapezaki and Lourdata are probably your best bet. They also have a few shops for essentials and a handful of tavernas – the one at Avithos beach is the best on the island.
If you’d rather escape the crowds, go to the East coast. Antisamos beach shelves steeply and is amazing for snorkelling. Sami has all the tourist facilities and a good choice of tavernas.

I love Kefalonia and you can see a lot of it in 2 weeks. Last time we stayed just outside of Fiskardo in the north, and loved it. Great restaurants and beautiful setting. We hired a boat which was easy and great fun.

We stayed in Skala is 2016 which was very quiet and peaceful with beautiful sea views and great restaurants. Fiskardo is also great for restaurants and there is a Roman Cemetery that is interesting.
There are some interesting caves - Melissani and Drogerati - near Sami. You can see sea turtles when the fishing boats come in in the mornings in Argostoli, I think we were there about 9.30/10 am.

It's a beautiful island and great fun to explore with a car, I'm sure you'll have a great time

Placemarking as I am also hoping to go there late summer this year. It sounds like a beautiful island.

Another vote for Fiskardo

I've actually been to kefalonia. It has kitty litter beaches IYKWIM so I wouldn't recommend for that, but I did have a nice time, it's a quiet island with a few nice restaurants.

I thought some beaches were sandy & some shingle @BobbitWormNightmares. We've chosen Kefalonia mainly as you can fly direct and think this year with all the uncertainty, we want to make our lives as easy as possible.

I think we're going to do a week in Fiskardo and a week near Avithos. Does that sound a good balance?

I would recommend spending a few of your days on beautiful Ithaca. You can get the ferry over and most car hire companies will let you do this.

Fiskardo is very pretty, it’s quite small though. Bear in mind the more attractive parts of the island in general (from a buildings point of view anyway) are in the north as there was a big earthquake there in the 50s which destroyed a lot of old architecture in the south.
I’d second Ithaca for a visit too. There are lovely beaches there but only a few sandy ones- Xi beach is, but probably isn’t as nice as Sami which has stones.
The turtles in the harbour at Argostoli are a regular feature I think and always nice to see!

We did Kefalonia and Zakyntos a few years a go; had a lovely and relaxing time. You do need a car if you want to explore the island.