Time flies and we are wrapping up our second week in Lefkada. Here’s a short summary.
Where we are staying
The decision to go to Greece was made shortly after Christmas. Finding a suitable apartment for our family in Lefkada was quite a challenge (we might be relying on our beloved Airbnb too much) so we ended up in a small village of Peratia, not too far from the island. Monthly rent was a bit over our budget (900 €) but the pickings were REALLY slim. We love the sea view from our amazing and huge terrace which also serves as a pool during a downpour. The rest of the apartment is not very exciting and we discovered a few unpleasant surprises right after our arrival – the kitchen utensils needed to be cleaned, neither the electric nor the gas stoves are working, it took two days to get the WiFi and water heater to work and there is way too much useless junk everywhere (well, I guess there must come a time in life when you need to use two harpoons!). BUT the beds are comfortable and having dinner while watching the sunset is simply priceless. And you know what? We got really good at making raw meals and managed to turn our bread making machine into a slow cooker. So in the end the overall experience is rather positive. 🙂
Communication
The WiFi in our apartment is now working but is on the slower side. We got Wind F2G pre-paid cards for our mobile phones – 15€ for the SIM card plus 2 GB data (here is a great place to find info about not-only-Greek mobile data plans).
Where we eat
We had our welcome-to-Lefkada dinner at a cute little restaurant, the Lighthouse Garden. It’s in the center but well hidden and you basically need to know where you’re going or be lucky to stumble upon it. The place is very nice, the owner is super friendly and sweet, and the food is OK (I guess Greek cuisine is not at the top of our list).
Thanks to our wonderful bread maker, we eat breakfasts at home. Homemade bread, cottage cheese, local vegetables and fresh orange juice (we buy local oranges from a farmer – 8kg for 5€) are our favorites.
Souvlaki Meating Point usually takes care of our lunch. The Foursquare reviews are mixed but we love this place. The waiter is amazing, kalamaki in pita bread is really yummy and the prices are hard to beat! The meal for all five of us including large beer and 1,5L bottle of water costs 16€.
We try to eat dinner at home and it’s usually a salad or a stew from our bread maker.
What we do
The two months in Prague were really hectic and we are now truly and fully taking advantage of the slow Greek life. The mornings are dedicated to work and play. We then pack our things and leave the house around 2pm, grab a lunch and head to the beach. Well, these were our days until the half of the second week. Then we got buried in work and met a really nice family from Czech republic. Their two boys are the same age as Lilly and Maya so the kids are thrilled. We’ll see how our schedule changes now. 😀
But no worries. We haven’t been just lazy. Here are our “distractions”:
- Trip to Nidri waterfalls: A really nice place if it wasn’t at a top of TripAdvisor’s list and therefore way too crowded for our liking (when will we learn!). Thank goodness we discovered a gorgeous beach with crystal clear water that made our day! Thank you, Mikros Gialos.
- Father’s day boat trip: This was so much fun! We rented a small motor boat in Nidri and spent the day discovering sea and small islands on the east coast of Lefkada. It got pretty adventurous at one point when the waves got all crazy and we were not sure if the boat was gonna make it (and us too, of course) but we survived. The weather was perfect (cloudy) and so was the skinny dipping. 🙂
- Kathisma beach: When we got to this beach, we were ready to turn around and leave. It was everything we hate. Crowded and loud. We decided to give it a try and walk to the end of it. Yes, it paid off! We found a beautiful and nearly deserted beach (only later did we realized it with most likely a nude beach) with clear water.