Zakynthos: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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In August 1953 an earthquake and the fire after it destroyed almost everything standing on this island — three buildings in the town survived. What you walk through now was rebuilt deliberately to the plan of what was lost, with a height limit and reinforced frames, which is why it looks Venetian and is younger than most of the people in it. Two hours, flat, and the museums hold what was pulled from the rubble.

A short history of Zakynthos

Zakynthos is mentioned by Homer, and from 1484 it was ruled by the Venetians, who called it the "Flower of the East". In 1798 the poet Dionysios Solomos was born here, and in 1823 he wrote the "Hymn to Liberty", which became the national anthem of Greece. In 1864 the island was united with Greece. In 1943 the Germans demanded that the mayor, Loukas Karrer, and Bishop Chrysostomos hand over a list of the island's Jews, and the two gave only their own names. About 275 Jews were hidden in the villages and all of them survived, and both men were recognised as Righteous Among the Nations. In 1953 an earthquake destroyed most of the town.

The ten best sights in Zakynthos

1
Zakynthos Town
Rebuilt after 1953 to the plan of the town the earthquake destroyed
2
Solomos Square
The main square, named for the poet who wrote the Greek national anthem here
3
Agios Dionysios
The island’s patron, and one of the three buildings that survived the earthquake
4
Bochali
The hill above the town, and the whole bay is below it
5
The Castle
A Venetian fortress in a pine wood on the hilltop, mostly ruins and all of it quiet
6
Navagio
A wrecked ship on a beach with no road to it, and that is the whole island on a postcard
7
The Viewpoint
The cliff above Navagio, and the platform is fenced for a reason
8
Blue Caves
White limestone under the water turns it a colour that looks edited
9
Cape Skinari
The northern tip, with a lighthouse and the boats to the caves
10
Agios Nikolaos
The small northern harbour, and the ferry to Kefalonia leaves from it

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Free walking tours in Zakynthos

A town rebuilt from a photograph

The Port · Venice held this island for three hundred years and called it the flower of the Levant, and the quay is where that began: everything the island exported — currants, olive oil, and the pitch from Keri — left from here. The ferry from the mainland still takes about an hour.
Solomos Square · Dionysios Solomos was born on this island in 1798 and wrote the Hymn to Liberty here in 1823 — a hundred and fifty-eight stanzas, of which the first two became the Greek national anthem and, later, the Cypriot one as well. He is buried in the museum on this square, and the square carries his name.
Byzantine Museum · This museum exists because of the earthquake. When the churches collapsed, what could be saved from their walls — icon screens, painted ceilings, whole altar fronts — was carried here, and some of it is displayed as a reconstructed church interior. It is a museum of a town that no longer stands.
Agios Dionysios · One of the three buildings in the town that survived 1953, and the island reads that as an answer rather than as engineering. The saint himself was a bishop from this island, and the story told about him is that a murderer came to him for shelter, confessed to killing the saint’s own brother, and was hidden and helped to escape.
Bochali · The hill above the town, and from it the shape of the bay is obvious: a long shallow arc facing east, which is why the town is where it is and why the airport runway runs along the far end of the same water. The view is the reason to climb; the pine wood behind it is the reason to stay.
The Castle · A Venetian fortress on the summit, and inside the walls there is nothing left standing but foundations, cisterns and a gate with the lion of Saint Mark on it. Until the seventeenth century the whole town lived up here — people only moved down to the shore when the sea stopped being dangerous.

The turtles and the rules

Laganas Bay is one of the most important nesting grounds for loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean, and in 1999 Greece made it the country’s first national marine park. What that means on the ground is a list of rules that a visitor runs into immediately: beaches that close at dusk, boat speeds capped, umbrellas banned above the tide line, and lights turned away from the sand. Half a day with a car, and the rules are the point of the route.

Gerakas · The single most important nesting beach in the Mediterranean. A female comes ashore at night, digs, lays about a hundred eggs and returns to the sea, and she does it on the beach she herself hatched on — which is why losing one beach is not replaceable. The beach closes at sunset and reopens in the morning, and the back half of it is fenced off entirely.
Marathonisi · An uninhabited islet in the middle of the bay, shaped like a turtle from above, and turtles do nest on its small beach. Boats are not allowed to land on the nesting side and are speed-limited across the whole bay, because a propeller strike on a surfacing turtle is the second biggest cause of death here after the loss of beaches.
Dafni · Reached down a rough track, with two tavernas and a line of sun-beds that is counted and licensed. This beach is where the conflict was fought out in the courts for years — nesting ground against building rights — and the compromise you are standing on is why the park was so hard to establish.
Kalamaki · A nesting beach with a resort behind it, which is the hardest combination to manage. The rule that matters here is light: a hatchling finds the sea by moving towards the brightest horizon, and a lit hotel behind the dune sends it inland instead. Every window facing this beach is supposed to be shielded after dark.
Keri · Herodotus wrote in the fifth century BC about pitch being taken from a pool on this island with a myrtle branch, and he was describing the tar springs below this village. The Venetians used that pitch to caulk their ships, and the springs are still there in the marsh by the shore.
Agios Sostis · A strip of rock joined to the shore by a wooden bridge, with a second islet beside it that is run as a private beach. Both were part of the mainland until the 1633 earthquake split them off — the island has been rearranged by earthquakes more than once, and 1953 was only the last.

The west cliffs

The two halves of Zakynthos are different islands. The east is a flat plain with beaches and resorts on it; the west is a wall of limestone four hundred metres high with villages on top and no way down except by boat. This route runs the top of the wall, and the famous beach at the end of it has no road to it at all. A full day and a car; the mountain roads are narrow and the viewpoint has a fence for a reason.

Macherado · The church of Agia Mavra has a Venetian bell tower that stayed standing in 1953 when almost nothing else did, and its bells are the ones the island knows by sound. The interior is covered in silver offerings left by people who asked the saint for something and got it.
Agios Leon · A village on the edge of the western plateau, and the tracks that drop from it to the sea are unpaved and steep. This is where the island changes character — from here west there are no resorts, because there is nowhere to put one.
Porto Limnionas · An inlet with no sand at all: the rock goes straight into deep clear water, and people get in off a ledge. It is what the whole west coast is like below the cliffs, and it is one of the few places where you can reach that water by road.
Kampi · A village on the cliff edge with a large concrete cross standing on it. The cross is a memorial, and the accounts of what for differ — a shipwreck, or islanders killed in the civil war. Below it the cliff drops three hundred metres straight into the sea, and the sunset from here is the one the island photographs.
Anafonitria · A fortified monastery from the fifteenth century, built with a defensive tower because the west coast was raided. Dionysios, the island’s patron, lived here as a monk and later as abbot, and the cell he used is kept as it was.
The Navagio Viewpoint · The ship on the beach below is the Panagiotis, which went aground here in 1980 — by most accounts a smuggler, chased in bad weather, carrying contraband. There is no road to the beach and there never was; everyone who stands on it arrived by boat. The platform you are standing on is fenced and limited because the cliff has given way before, with people on it.

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Getting to Zakynthos and getting around

Zakynthos Airport · Five kilometres from town, and the runway runs along the edge of the turtle bay
Zakynthos Port · Ferries from Kyllini on the mainland, about an hour

Cheap eats in Zakynthos

The island food is Venetian in the same way Corfu’s is, and two things are properly local: ladotyri, a hard sheep cheese matured in olive oil, and mandolato, a nougat of honey and almonds that is sold by the slab in the town. The going rate for a souvlaki is a few euro, for a plate of rabbit stifado three or four times that. These are counters and village squares, not beach restaurants.

The town lanes · A few euro, standing, and open past midnight
Katastari · The largest village, and nothing in it is aimed at visitors
Volimes · Cheese, honey and weaving sold from the houses themselves
Porto Limnionas · One taverna on the rock above the inlet
Keri · Village tavernas on the hill, and the lamb is the dish
Maries · A square, a church and one place that cooks
Agios Nikolaos · The northern harbour, and fish straight off the boats
Alykes · The old salt pans behind it, and the tavernas face them

Museums in Zakynthos

Three collections, and all three exist because of the same event: the earthquake of 1953 destroyed the island, and what could be carried out of the churches and the houses was gathered into these rooms. The poet of the national anthem is buried in one of them.

Byzantine Museum · A reconstructed church interior from what was saved
Solomos Museum · The poet is buried here, in the square named for him
Agios Dionysios · One of three buildings in the town that survived 1953
Agia Mavra, Macherado · A Venetian bell tower that stayed up in the earthquake
The Castle · Foundations, cisterns and the lion of Saint Mark on the gate

Nature and day trips near Zakynthos

Zakynthos is a flat plain stuck to a wall: the east is farmland and beach, the west is limestone four hundred metres high with no way down. In between there is a marine park, sulphur springs, tar springs that Herodotus wrote about, and sea caves that are only reachable by boat.

Blue Caves · Boats from Skinari and from Agios Nikolaos; go early
Keri Caves · Arches and caves at the south-west corner, by boat
Xigia · Sulphur comes out of the cliff; the smell is the point
Askos Stone Park · Walked, not driven; deer, oak and drystone walls
Louha · The highest village, and the walk out of it is the reason
Marathonisi · Uninhabited, turtle-shaped, and turtles nest on it
Exo Chora · An olive tree here is said to be two thousand years old

Things to do in Zakynthos with kids

The east coast is one long shallow shelf and the bus reaches most of it. The one thing to explain to a child before you go is the turtle rules — no digging on marked sand, no umbrellas behind the line, and nothing on the beach after dark.

Tsilivi · Shallow, sandy, and everything is within walking distance
Alykanas · Quieter than Tsilivi and the water is just as flat
Banana Beach · Long sand on the east of Vasilikos, with room on it
Porto Zoro · Rocks in the sand that children climb, and sunrise behind them
Cameo Island · A wooden bridge to a rock; small, and they charge for it
Agios Sostis · A tiny peninsula with flat water on both sides of it

Holy places in Zakynthos

The churches here were rebuilt after 1953 and several of them are older inside than out — the bell towers and the icon screens were saved and set into new walls. One story on this island belongs in this cube and nowhere else, and it is about what the clergy did in 1944.

Agios Dionysios · Open all day; the saint is carried out twice a year
Anafonitria · A fortified monastery; the saint lived here as a monk
Agia Mavra · Silver offerings cover the walls inside
Bochali · A small church on the hill with the bay below it
Gyri · A mountain hamlet with its spring and its chapel
Maries · Said to be founded by Mary Magdalene’s companions

Nightlife in Zakynthos

Laganas is one of the loudest strips in Greece and it sits on a protected bay, which is the island’s unresolved contradiction. The town has a quieter evening of its own, and the west has none at all. Know which one you are booking next to.

Laganas · The strip; loud from midnight and it is not subtle
The town · Tables around Solomos Square from eight
Argasi · Between the two, and it empties by one
Tsilivi · Bars along the beach road, and families until late
Kampi at sunset · The cliff, the cross, and the whole west below it
Bochali · The hill above town; the quiet version of the evening

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Frequently asked questions about Zakynthos

What is there to see in Zakynthos?

The top sights in Zakynthos are Zakynthos Town, Solomos Square and Agios Dionysios. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Zakynthos?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Zakynthos without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Zakynthos?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Zakynthos, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: A town rebuilt from a photograph.

How do you get to Zakynthos and get around?

The main ways are Zakynthos Airport and Zakynthos Port. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Zakynthos, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Zakynthos that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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