KEFALONIA ISLAND

Kefalonia is placed opposite the Patras bay, north of Zante, south of Lefkada and west of Ithaka. It covers an area of 773 square kilometers and has population around 35.801 people. Large part of the island is covered by the mountain range of ‘’Ainos’’ which has been characterized as a National Park, with the highest mountain picks being ‘’Megas Soros’’ (1628 m.), ‘’Agia Dynati’’ (1131 m.), ‘’Eymorfia’’ (1043 m.) and ‘’Kokkini Rachi’’ (1078 m.)

Ainos mountain range is famous worldwide for the existence of the unique ‘’Black fir of Kefalonia’’ and that’s why has the name of ‘’Monte Nero’’ (Black Mountain) and also from the packs of small sized wild horses of the race ‘’Equus Caballus’’.

The shores of Kefalonia form many bays and capes. Most famous bays are ‘’Sami’’, ‘’Myrtos’’, ‘’Lourdas’’, ‘’Atheras’’, ‘’Fiskardo’’, ‘’Livadi’’ and bay of Argostoli known also as ‘’Koutavos’’. Famous capes are ‘’Mounda’’, ‘’Kapros’’, ‘’Mytikas’’, ‘’Dafnoudi’’ and others.
Another interesting phenomenon of the island is the large number of caves that can be found almost everywhere on it, like the famous ‘’Melissani’’, ‘’Drogkarati’’, ‘’Zervati’’ and others.

The island is also famous for the large number of beautiful and awarded beaches worldwide, with crystal clear waters surrounded by rocks and trees. One of them is Myrtos Beach which has been voted 11 times as the best Greek beach.
In the 1953 the island was hit by a large scale earthquake, which had as a result the largest percentage of buildings to collapse.

There are evidences that the island has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era. The first known people were called ‘’Leleges’’ which were living on the island from the 15th century BC.

The name of the island comes from the mountainous people called ‘’Kefallines’’ and has been proposed more likely to be the homeland of Odysseus the hero of Homeric poem, rather than neighbor island of Ithaka.

Kefalonia was also conquered by the Roman empire and was also part of the Byzantine empire. From 1185 till 1479 it was province of the Kingdom of Sicily. After this and until 1500, the island fell to the Ottoman empire, and then to Venice Republic after a great victory, where they succeeded against Ottomans in the second Venice-Ottoman war. In 1797, all the area of "Eptanisa" including Kefallonia, were conquered by French, but on 1809 they were conquered by the British Empire. On the 29th of March 1864, due to an agreement in London, the British gave "Eptanisa" to the Kingdom of Greece as a gift. Since then, all the area remained to Greece, apart from two periods on the first world war when the island conquered again by France, and the second world war when it was conquered at the beginning by the Italians and then by the Germans.
It is very interesting to note that a large number of the surnames of the people of the island has suffix -atos, as well as many villages, places and settlements. This phenomenon first time appeared back inthe 13th century.

The island has two female monasteries. The first is the monastery of ‘’Agios Andreas Milapidias’’,which is placed at the municipality of ‘’Livatho’’, while the second is placed at the center of the island in the province of ‘’Omala’’ and is dedicated to the protector of the island ‘’Saint Gerasimos’’, from which many newborn children on the island are called Gerasimos for the males, and Gerasimia for the females. On the second monastery has happened a funny well-known incident when on a Great Thursday liturgy, a local drunk priest found that the 12 gospels were 13.