1 March 2025 – Eastern Lefkada & The Coast Road To The Salt Pans

Miles driven today = 121

Total Miles to date = 1,530

We were up, showered and on the road by 9 this morning, which hasn’t happened very often this trip, but we wanted to make sure we had clambered our way back up the single track road from Porto Katsiki before there was likely to be any traffic coming the other way.  From there we climbed up and over the southernmost headland of Lefkada before dropping down to the picturesque little fishing  village of Vasiliki.

The beaches on the eastern side of the island aren’t anywhere near as awesome as those to the west but they are a lot more accessible and this side of the island is considerably more heavily populated.

After Vasiliki the road became a good deal wider but the surface was rarely any better as we climbed again through a number of small hill villages before dropping back to the coast at Vlicho.

It then hugged the coastline a lot more closely as we headed north through several resorts and fishing villages.  Our final stop was at the harbour at Ligia.

Back at Lefkada Town we did a quick shopping stop at Lidl before making our way back over to the mainland.  It was still only 11:30 and we were in no rush to get anywhere fast so, rather than taking the tolled motorway we diverted through Palairos to follow the coast road.  The town was bedecked with bunting, presumably something to do with the public holiday festivities.

Shortly after Palairos we came across this cow wandering calmly down the road and not looking at all perturbed at our presence.  We also spotted herds of floppy eared goats and a guy herding his sheep along a track on his moped.

We pulled in for lunch in a spot where we could look back across the strait to Lefkada.

There was quite a lot more cloud today, especially on the hilltops and we had a few light, unforecast showers along the way.

We continued past Mytikas, then shortly before Astakos we stopped at this view point looking across towards Drakonera and it’s neighbouring islands.  You can also see one of the many fish farms we passed.

From Astakos we headed inland and had an interesting moment when a German touring cyclist ran into the back of the van at the only set of traffic lights for miles.  Thankfully neither she nor the van came to any harm.

The area around Katochi had some industrial scale orange picking going on and the island town of Aitoliko looked interesting with literally thousands of coots bobbing around on the water.  “Crazy” said Lisa without the slightest hint of irony.

We finally made our way along the edge of the salt pans of Missolonghi and then along a causeway to the small island settlement of Toulida, where we are parked a short distance from a Salt Museum.

The salt pans don’t really look particularly photogenic at this time of year.  They are flooded with sea water at the beginning of the Summer and the salt is ready to be harvested in September once the water has been evaporated by the heat of the Sun.

Abandoned machinery used for piling the salt into trucks for transporting the salt along narrow gauge railways around the lagoon.

The aforementioned trucks.

A pile of rather grubby looking salt.  We saw much larger piles of pristine white stuff as we were approaching Missolonghi.

Sculpture entitled “Salty Place” by Vangelis Robolas.

The museum is situated in a building which originally housed workers on the salt pans in the 1930s.

Assorted salts from around the globe.

Examples of different coloured salts.

Hand made tools used by the salt workers in times past and historical photos of salt workers in Missolonghi.  We learnt that the workers always had bare feet because the salt ruined their shoes.  I can’t imagine it did their feet much good either.

A collection of all sorts of varieties of cruet sets.

In the shop we sampled a few of the varieties they had on offer and came away with a packet of smoked salt.

An example of a local fishing boat.  They have no keel in order to navigate the shallow waters.

We had a quick wander around Toulida.  According to Wikipedia the 2011 census showed the settlement only had 15 residents.  There are 2 largish restaurants but apart from that it’s mainly fishing shacks.

There is a small church.  I really hope they don’t start ringing that bell too early in the morning.

The museum closed at 5pm and so we are effectively now on a dead end road.  But there has been an almost constant stream of vehicles driving up here, turning round and driving back again.  At past 8pm it’s finally starting to quieten down but given it’s Saturday night we are both a little on edge that somebody may turn up at some ungodly hour and make a racket just as we are drifting off to sleep.  Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.

2 March 2025 - Nafpaktos