Cephalonia

Our 5am flight from Manchester airport took off on time for the three hour flight to Cephalonia for our week stay on this lovely Greek Island. We were last here in October 2004.

On arrival it was thunder and lightening and it stayed like that all day and night with torrential downpours; a bit like home from home! The sat nat was a godsend to take us the 17miles to our appartment. That's typically greek - there's a nice 4 star hotel next door and it's very tempting to move!

The blip picture shows the view coming into land at Cephalonia airport.

The island has a human history dating back 50,000 years with paleolithic findings. Later on the men of the island are mentioned in wars against the Persians (5th cent. BC)  In 188BC the Romans conquered Cephalonia and they sold its inhabitants as slaves and looted the island. The island also suffered pirate attacks many times through history.

At the end of the 12th century AD the Francs conquered the Ionian islands, and were to stay until the Turks defeated them in the 15th century. Then followed Venetian rule from AD 1500 to 1797. Cephalonia was to suffer several Turkish attacks, and in 1797 Napoleons army invaded the island. A year later the British help the Russian/Turkish army take over. In 1807 the French came back, and two years later the British seized power.

In 1864 the island was finally liberated, but was to be occupied by Italian and German military during the second world war.

In 1953 there was a terrible earthquake which destroyed most buildings on the island, and killed many. Only the northern village of Cephalonia ,Fiscardo ,was saved and is today the only village on the island with older architecture.


This weeks Wide Angle Wednesday (theme free tag) is 'widwed44'