#kephalonia

Came here to pay a visit?

Stay with me.

Hello! I don’t know much about Kephalonia because I live far away. I wil tell you what I have found in Greek sites about the island.

Cause I am hungry, let’s start with the cuisine:

They have a famous white dry wine called Robola. They have pie (fylo pies) with cod, and of course they make lots of pies with red meat. Weeds, omeletes with tomato, Rabbit, rooster and goat are in the traditional cuisine. When it comes to sweets, first comes the Mandola, almonds covered in sugar.

Then comes the Mandolato, this gel:

Another famous sweet is Pastokithono. Ιt’s boiled quince with honey and almonds.

The traditional recipe books of Kefalonia, the Retsetes, have more recipes in them!

Other facts for Kephalonia: 

There you can find Careta-Careta turtles and seals.

The goddess Britomartis was worshipped there.

The island had been under Venetian and then English rule, if you are interested to search more about that period. There are castles in the island from that era. If you can’t find anything in English, ask me so I can try and find info in Greek.

There are two big monasteries there.

After the 13th century the names of places in the island ended in -ata (Kourkoumelata, Valsamata etc)

There was a destructive earthquacke on the island in 1953.

I also know that Assasin’s Creed Odyssey starts in Kephalonia, because the main hero Alexios/Kassandra have grown up there! :P I suggest playing the game, it’s so rich in Greek culture! 

Notable people include:

Poets like Nikos Kavathias (Νίκος Καββαδίας), Mikelis Avlichos (Μικέλης Άβλιχος), Nikos Fokas (Νίκος Φωκάς) and Ioulios Tipalthos (Ιούλιος Τυπάλδος, born in 1814, belonged in the Solomonic School of thought). 

An important painted was Spirithon Vikatos (Σπυρίδων Βικάτος).

From political figures we have Anthreas Metaxas (Ανδρέας Μεταξάς, a great fighter, 1821 revolution hero and later became general of the country), Konstantinos Werakakis (Κωνσταντίνος Γεράκης, who managed to be prime minister of Siam (!!!) in 1683) and Ioannis Metaxas (Ιωάννης Μεταξάς. Well, he is “notable” because he was a dictator until 1941 :P As bad as he was, he said the famous “No” to Italians when they wanted him to give them Greece. We have the day of Ohi, “No”, when we celebrate that No). And last we have Aleka Papariwa, (Αλέκα Παπαρήγα) modern leader of the Communist Party of Greece, KKE.

A great singer from the areas was Maria Farandouri. 

From the island came a famous sea explorer, Ioannis Fokas (1536 – 1602). His Spanish name was Juan De Fuca and he explored the coast of North America for the Spanish.

I had no idea that all those people were from Kephalonia! Wow!