Greece is famed for its beautiful beaches, turquoise waters and stunning mountainous landscape. The beautiful island of Kefalonia is no different.
I visited for a week in July and lapped up all it had to offer, but we were given a very stark warning at the start of the trip.
In comes holiday rep Karen, who is part Greek via Kent and has lived on the island for 14 years. She kindly ran us through a string of must-visits including boat trips, restaurants and sites, as well as how far in advance to book them.
The one huge caveat was dodging when the cruise ships arrived.
Karen rolled her eyes as she told us horror stories of mobbed beaches and roads clogged with coaches, as well as port towns overrun with plodding visitors off giant ships.
“We call them ‘The Walking Dead’,” she explained. We laughed, thinking, ‘It can’t be that bad, surely?’ But Karen’s deadpan stare told us otherwise.
Sure enough days later we visited the capital of Argostoli and were enjoying the harbour views when a darks shadow cast over the horizon. A giant TUI vessel loomed into view – luckily heading out of the port.
There was another slightly smaller cruise ship docked and quickly proved Karen right – the plodders had arrived.
After that close encounter we took her advice seriously and high-tailed it out of locations when we saw coaches pull up.
So, while it was a beautiful week away it’s definitely a good idea to look up docking days unless you want to fight your way through crowds of cruise ship tourists.