Another Greek Epic - Hiking to the Mountain Village of Lakones

Perched on a clifftop 180 m above sea level lies the beautiful mountain village of Lakones, an 18th Century settlement, a four kilometre walk from Paleokastritsa.

To get there we followed part of the 220km long Corfu Trail, introduced in 2001 and identified by a series of yellow paint markers, allowing visitors walk the length of the island through landscapes completely untouched by mass tourism. 

Meandering through the silvery green olive groves, ancient donkey paths and rugged gorges, we were so distracted by the beautiful sights along the way we barely noticed the 40°C heat.

I fell in love with this house when we first visited Paleokastritsa in 2017 and the day after we got home rushed to the garden centre and bought some Agapanthus which blooms more beautifully every year, an annual reminder of the island paradise that is Corfu.

No picture of Corfu would be complete without these elegant Cypress trees bursting through the olive groves like velvet spears. The Greeks know them as Dachtila tou Theo, translated as finger of god. Due to their straight growing nature they were originally used to provide the upper floors in traditional Corfiot houses and are still used today for roof supports and boat building.

After a sweaty climb, an hour later we reached Lakones, stopping off at the village bakery for ice cold frappes.

What might have been. We spotted this three storey 18th century stone cottage up for sale in 2019 and stalked the estate agent's website for over two years, watching the price steadily drop to under 40,000 euros & seriously considering whether we ought it make it ours. One morning I checked and it had sold and we've kicked ourselves ever since. What's even more annoying that whoever bought it hasn't moved in or done anything to it. Not as much of a bargain but THIS is rather fabulous, imagine all the cats we could accommodate. Any fellow Grecophiles fancy going halves?!

We stopped for a chat with an elderly shopkeeper who insisted we try his son's award-winning forest honey which was so delicious we ended up buying ourselves a jar. I couldn't resist purchasing this Greek-made hat either. He told us that coaches drop off cruise ship passengers at midday every day where after taking a photo of the view, they strip his shop like locusts before being driven away and generously discounted our purchases, telling us that he'd be rolling in cash later. 

Can you see the petrified form of Odysseus' ship, The Odyssey, in the photo above?

Perched on the cliff in the photo above is the Byzantine-era monastery of Holy Theotokos, dating from 1225, the oldest monastery on Corfu. We visited back in 2017 meaning that a return trip is well overdue.

Although there's a few chi-chi holiday villas springing up on the outskirts of the village, Lakones mostly comprises 17th and 18th century buildings many bearing an Italian influence from of the island's long period under Venetian rule. 

Of course, there's cats galore. We met a trio of Italian cyclists who sat with us and fell in love with them all.

Nothing ever seems to change in sleepy Lakones. Looking back at the photos I took back in 2019, this knackered old pick-up was parked in the same place.

 We took these photos from the very top of the village, Bella Vista, where Lawrence Durrell once stood  and declared it the best view in the whole of the Mediterranean. He wasn't wrong, was he? 

After our hour-long descent back to Paleokastritsa we were in need of some sustenance, a Greek salad with a pint of Mythos at Spiro's Taverna never tasted so good. 

Sorry about the post overload, I'm trying to post all my travelogues before we head off to our next festival and our trip becomes ancient history. 

See you soon!