Zakynthos > The Island

The Island of Zakynthos

This southernmost of the Ionian Islands – the inhabitants endearingly refer to it as Zante – has always been praised by travelers and poets alike for its lavish vegetation and scenic beauty. The Venetians, well versed in world-wide travels and rulers of Zakynthos for many centuries, called this island “Fiore di Levante” (the Flower of the East).

The island of Zakynthos is famed for its varied topography. Its eastern part is covered by planes and valleys which fall off slowly to the golden sandy beaches and lovely bays of the sea shore. The mountains are low but they cover a large part of the island. In contrast you have the barren and rough, only thinly populated mountainous regions of western and northern Zakynthos. Their 200-meter-high cliffs plunge abruptly and almost vertically into the clear blue Adriatic. The spectacular coastline with its fjord-like bays and picturesque caves is a scenic adventure of its own.

The sandy beaches of the East coast are without doubt the most beautiful of the entire Ionian archipelago. Besides extensive olive groves, there are cypress and pine forests that sometimes reach all the way down to the sea.

The island is blessed with an ample groundwater supply that fills the many wells and manifests itself directly in many open springs.

This island directly offshore from the Peloponnesus is marked by its many contrasting aspects. The fertile flat lands and low mountains of the East and Southeast are densely populated. This is the Garden of Eden with all-year-round flowers and greenery where one finds, on the one hand, idyllic farm villages surrounded by olive groves, fruit orchards and vineyards and, on the other hand, the lively and charming city life of the island’s capital.

The endangered sea turtle, Caretta caretta, deposits its eggs in the sandy beaches of the southern and eastern coasts. These beaches rank as the most important biotopes of Caretta caretta in the entire Mediterranean region. For their protection and to provide detailed information to the traveler, members of the National Marine Park of Zakynthos (founded in 1999) patrol the island all year round.

The Zakynthian musical tradition has, of course been strongly influenced by western elements. This has led to the very special song form of the “cantade”. A special form of the cantade, the “arékia”, is of Cretian origin; arékias are unaccompanied songs in four-part harmony. The melodious cantades are still today sung on this island – with great passion.

Dionysios Solomos, the Greek national poet, was born 1798 on Zakynthos – he died 1857 on Corfu. In 1864, the first two stanzas of his Hymn to Freedom became the national anthem of Greece.

Zakynthos is tied to the mainland (specifically, to Killini on the Peloponnesus) by a frequent ferry service. The passage from Killini to Zakynthos takes about one-and-a-half hours. Flights go from Athens to Zakynthos, all year round. In the months of May through October, direct flights to Zakynthos are available from several of the larger European cities.