Flights
We were on time going out from Manchester and 45 minutes late coming back.
However the girls from the creche said that the Gatwick flight is usually
delayed by two or three hours each way. If you are delayed coming back the
taverna on the main road just outside the airport is apparently good
(baguettes in the airport cost E5 and are pretty dire). Remember to split
everyone's clothes between suitcases in case any should get lost in
transit.
Car Hire
If you have a couple of kids you'll probably need to upgrade to at least a
Group C car if not Group D, depending how much you take. Preveza/Aktion is
a small airport and your hire car will be parked about 50 yards from the
exit so no bus to catch. We took our own car seats but the Europcar hire
ones looked OK (we'd heard they had been poor in previous years). Beware
you have to accept either a E600 ish excess for any damage to your car or
pay an additional E50 ish up front. We took the chance but were a bit
pissed off at this hidden charge.
Cash/Cards
Cashpoints are available at the airport and in Lefkas town but credit cards
are rarely accepted in shops/supermarkets/bars/restaurants, including
settling your bar bill at Mousses. I'd recommend taking a decent wad of
cash to start you off so you don't feel under pressure to drive to a
cashpoint straight away.
Villas
Don't forget (as we did) that free beach towels are included so no need to
take up valuable suitcase space with your own. There were lots of buckets
and spades already there but I'd recommend taking water pistols etc. The
kids with these were very popular. Take mosi repellent. Make sure you
work out how to use the aircon (I was going around the apartments on the
Wednesday giving lessons on how to slide back the remote cover and use the
fan/sweep settings). We hardly found any children's programmes on the
satellite TV so our portable DVD player was a godsend.
Although the documentation suggests you have to check out by 10am they
don't start cleaning the rooms until 2-3pm and the owners were happy for us
to use our villa until then.
Restaurants
The bar at Mousses offers pretty good food ranging from E3 - E10, plus E1
if you want it delivered to your villa. The Wednesday night barbecue is
very good and cost E18 for meat or E26 if you wanted fish as well
(unfilleted so beware if you don't like bones). For kids up to age 10 the
cost was E10. The barbecue also included a wide range of vegetarian
dishes. It was the one night everyone stayed at the bar (with their kids)
as people are reluctant to leave kids in villas and use baby monitors these
days.
The bar does nice espressos and lattes for E2.50 that come with
complimentary cake and a glass of iced water.
Milos beach bar five minutes away is great for evening meals and a glorious
spot to watch wind and kite surfers and the sunset. There are some ruins
of windmills along the beach, which just had a pleasant breeze whilst we
were there. Further to the left as you look at the sea the beach gets
narrower and shelves more gently but Tilagrafos is a nice restaurant with
shady gardens.
Gyra beach ten minutes away is more sheltered and attracted a mainly Greek
crowd. The taverna there does good food including fresh fish but is only
open at lunchtimes.
Both the Italian restaurants in Lefkas square were mediocre although the
square is nice for kids to run around. Restaurants that were more highly
rated included Seven Islands (traditional), The Lighthouse (for the garden
setting as much as the food) and Eh Zyn (local + international) all near
the square; and Sto Molo, a green coloured restaurant on the marina road
(nice setting but not great for young children as there is no fence between
seating and harbour). Rosemary the rep will mark these on a map for you
and show you the best place to park.
Shopping
The best supermarket is Champion, a ten minute drive away, marked on one of
the maps in your welcome pack. The red mini market three minutes walk away
does nice pain au chocolat and fresh bread from a local bakery.