The start of the trek - along the valley, up into the mountain.
I'd dressed for the cold but it was rather warm! (Photo by Zandra Cherrington)
Going up!
Being watched intently along the way.
Being watched intently along the way.
View of Sami, Karavomylos and Sami bay with the Monastery of St. Fanantes in the foreground
Ithaca has it's hat on - the view from here is amazing
Having a rest under the 2000 year old olive tree
It gets a bit narrow in places!
Bonny having a well earned rest after being my trusted steed for the morning
Bonny having a well earned rest after being my trusted steed for the morning
Well the weather changed dramatically on the 7th January. SNOW!!!!! We knew that Kefalonian winters were cold (2 degrees) and that Mount Aenos usually has snow every year, but we weren't expecting it in the valley. Apparently it hasn't snowed in the valley since 2006.
It started early in the morning and just got worse as the day went on. There were sunny intervals in between and it made for a very picturesque setting when the blue skies emerged.
Early morning - view from the back garden - snow visible on the mountain
Later in the afternoon - no mountain visible!
Early morning
Later in the afternoon
Believe it or not this is the same day. When the sun came out it was a different story - very picturesque.
Olive grove behind the house
Ready made lemon sorbet!
The snow continued through the night and lay quite thick. The next morning it was like a scene from a Christmas card.
The local cemetery at Grizata
The local church at Grizata
The donkeys (from Donkey Trekking Kefalonia) didn't seem to mind the snow
There was snow on the beach at Sami too.
Rocky and Bobby love the snow
As well as snow, January was quite a wet month with a few thunderstorms. Always wanting to look on the positive side to this - the island is always green and there are usually rainbows to be seen and photographed. Usually when I see a rainbow I haven't got my camera on me, even though my motto is - ALWAYS carry a camera. However on this occasion I captured a rainbow complete with a secondary rainbow too. If you notice, the colours on the secondary rainbow are always the opposite way around to the primary rainbow. Also - in theory, every rainbow is a complete circle, but from the ground, only its upper half can be seen.
Secondary rainbow - From left to right
Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red
Primary rainbow - From left to right
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
Double rainbow over Ithaca as seen from Sami beach. Agia Effimia just visible on the left and the ferry which travels between Sami and Ithaca can be seen as a white speck on the horizon.
On the 18th January 2017 we celebrated owning our Kefalonian villa for 1 year. Unfortunately the weather was terrible as you can see from the weather map below.
Weather map for 18th January 2017 (Courtesy of Ventusky)
On the 21st January, the blue skies emerged again so it was a trip out to Lake Avithos and Poros.
Looking back - The road to Sami, through the valley
We stopped off at Lake Avithos (the word Avithos in Greek means bottomless) near Agios Nikolaos. There used to be some mystery surrounding the lake as locals and scientists couldn't determine how deep it was, hence the name. The reason they couldn't measure its depth was because the measuring instruments they were using were being carried away by an underground river therefore producing false readings. Needless to say, it isn't bottomless and there is no Loch Ness type monster in it as far as we could see.
Avithos Lake
From there it was on to Poros and the strange mushroom rocks in the sea which legend has it, were thrown by a Cyclops at pirates!
Rain stopped play after this day and it was back to rain, rain and more rain, but on the 25th January the sun came back out and so did we! We'd been to Lixouri before but never ventured to Xi beach on the Paliki peninsula. The beach is known for its red sand. We did a bit of beach combing and collected some shells.
Xi beach - Looking East towards Argostoli
Looking west
Snorky having a rest!
So January is almost over. What will February bring.........?
Wait and see!
