Zakynthos is another fairly big Ionian island with several walks at least good for a week or so of walking holiday. Unfortunately most of the walks I selected were actually not that interesting. More about that later…

Zakynthos Town is a good place to stay with (especially) some really good Fish tavernas around. Unfortunately the quality of the wine usually does not follow. Actually, the only place in town I could find that had a fresh, young white house wine was the fairly simple but wonderful Spartakos. For bottled wine there is the nice local Verdea. This comes in both dry and semi-dry versions.

Selected walks: For walks on the island, see Zakynthos (Zante) by Gail Schofield (referred to as “/Schofield/”).

•1 ZAKYNTHOS TOWN (my total time 2h04; 246a 247d; net walking time 1h33): This is a variant of the “Suggested Walking Tour of Zakynthos town” in /Schofield/.

1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9
10	11	12

The walk starts at the statue of Solomós by the Museum of Post-Byzantine Art. If the museum is open by all means visit before continuing with the rest of the walk¹.

Then walk inland past San Marco square and continue up the street. Your real ascent starts at some stairs².

Continue up steep streets³ until it all levels out and you curve past a church⁴.

From the church take yet another lane going upwards⁵ until it becomes a concreted track under pines⁶.

Keep left and you end up at the gate of the fortress⁷. Unfortunately, at my visit medio August the fortress was closed that week.

From the fortress stroll down to Bóchali and its church⁸ for more great views.

On the return you can take the alternative concrete footpath⁹ going left to connect with the track you used on your way up.

Follow the track and later any lane you want down into town again and you can stroll any street you want e.g. back to your starting point. Me, I wanted to orientate myself further and continued south into Lazárou street to look for the bus station. After a while up this street, another church, the Ág. Lázaros itself¹⁰.

Realizing I had now walked way past the bus station without seeing any signs for it (they are there, just too inconspicuous) I turned back and walked the back streets until, finally¹¹…

My “official” walk ends at the bus station¹², where it is possible to have a snack and/or drink if you want.

•2 GÉRAKAS HEADLAND (my total time 1h56, includes a small dip in the ocean and quite a bit of “research”; 194a 196d; net walking time 1h10): This is walk 1 in /Schofield/.

A very short walk, but still incredibly difficult to follow. Since all walks in /Schofield/ quite to the contrary to all other Sunflower guides I have used are written solely for motorists I had to try to connect to the walk from the bus stop at the Gérakas crossroads. Unfortunately the “maps” (useless hand-drawn 3D sketches with no scale) are almost impossible to read and the walk descriptions way too simplistic to be of much help if you are not already at the right spot.

To connect to the walk from the Gérakas crossroads you take the road to the right of the main road going down. Keep left. There are so many gates and no way of knowing which one is the right one so you will have to walk to the “well” referred to (OBS OBS: actually a spring!) and then turn back again.

From the correct gate it is an irritating number of more gates (one even used twice!) that have to be negotiated.

When you are finally down to the beach, finding the track back up again also turned difficult. I have no means of knowing which “parking area” the book refers to, there were parking all over the place. I just strolled the road back to the bus stop.

All in all a rather uninteresting walk. And too short, but it can be extended by walking from/to Porto Roma.

•3 LAKE KERÍ (my total time 1h20; 117a 118d; net walking time 1h06): This is walk 9 in /Schofield/.

This walk is also way to short to be of much interest, but at least easy to find and follow.

•4 ÁGIOS SÓSTIS (my total time 1h51, including long detours and “investigation”; 178a 178d; net walking time 1h32): This is walk 8 in /Schofield/.

The only good way of starting this walk is by bus to Laganás. At the bus terminus you are actually just a couple of hundred meters from point 17 on this walk. Just stroll along the beach.

Unfortunately the walk itself is impossible to follow as described in the book (maybe at low tide???). There is no beach to walk on at all times and you will have to cross very difficult rocky areas. Maybe you could wade but the waters are murky and there is no way of knowing what you might tread on. This forced me on larger and larger detours inland, and in the end I had no idea when I was at the correct beach. Actually I never got there but managed eventually to connect with the described walk again by “ancient olives.” I have no useful instructions to provide for you here.

Another rather uninteresting walk that you might just pass.

•5 KALAMÁKI – MOUNT SKOPÓS – ARGÁSSI (my total time 4h22, includes a couple of swims near the start and refreshments at the “kantina” near the top; 597a 609d; net walking time 2h39): This is walk 6 (Alt 3) and 5 in /Schofield/.

To get anything useful out of the book I had to start putting together something of my own. This is a wonderful walk. Use the touring map to connect the walks.

You can (be careful and only walk outside turns) end the walk in Argássi and take the bus back to Zakynthos town from there. It is also possible to extend the walk by walking the entire way back to town, but this I can NOT recommend!

• Good starting points: • Zakynthos Town

• How to get there: • By air • By ferry from some other Ionian islands • By ferry from the mainland

• More info: • Ktel Buses has bus schedules for the island