Travel Diary | Zakynthos, Greece

If you’ve been following my instagram stories for the past week you may have noticed a little change in scenery, my family and I have been on our summer holiday to the gorgeous island of Zakynthos (also known as Zante) in beautiful Greece! Having had such a gorgeous summer weather wise it wasn’t so much the weather we were craving but the uninterrupted down time. With all of us always being so busy this is the first full week all of us have had free in a very long time, so we had to make the most of it! I’ve got a few snaps to share and I hope you enjoy them, we stayed in an amazing traditional Greek villa in the mountains and spent our days catching up by the pool, swimming in the sea and exploring the many coastal restaurant locations Zakynthos had to offer. The highlight of the trip for me had to be the boat trip we took on our last day. My family love water so much and have always gravitated towards the sea, we felt very at home taking a boat out to explore the coastline, the Kiri caves as well as turtle island, the water was like nothing I’ve ever seen and despite being quite apprenhensive, jumping straight off the boat into the ocean turned into one of my most treasured memories of the week.

My sister and I’s rooms had a shared terrace with the most amazing view over the mountains, watching the sun rise and set from here was one of the most relaxing moments of the whole week.

I always tend to read more on holiday anyone else get that? In one week I managed to read all of Truly, Madly, Guilty. I finished ‘Little fires everywhere’ and ‘Year of Yes’ a little under 1000 pages. Accompanied with a glass of rose it was the perfect pool side companion, second only to catching up with my family. With everything being so busy at home it’s nice to just sit and chat and reconnect

One of the views we had from dinner right on the beach, the island in the background is Kefalonia and if you look further to the right you’ll see another of the gorgeous islands in the background, it’s easy to see how people go island hopping and never come back

Exploring the Old Zante Town for dinner was one of our favourites that we kept coming back to, the square in the middle is full of children playing whilst parents graze on food and chat, I love how in traditional Mediterranean towns like this everyone, even the children, stay up so late and come out once its cool.

The lunch on the right was my standard order for most of the week, pork, chicken or lamb gyros with a greek salad for the table. If you’re ordering for dinner expect it to come on a plate in a DIY style, just as delicious.

This was our view heading out of the bay in our boat, so beautiful to see all the villas up on the hill with families out on their terraces. This particular day was scorchingly hot so even the locals stayed under shade.

The photo above is what I meant when I said the water was like nothing I’d ever seen, tie dyed colours of bright blue and deep teal made the water seem bottomless and in the sunshine the colours came to life like something out of a jewellers window. Although we’ve been to this coastline about ten years ago, something about the water I just couldn’t look away.

We found a gorgeous cove to anchor in, and after a motivational speech from both my mum and sister (if you’ve seen my instagram recently you’ll know I’ve been trying to be #10percentbraver) I took the plunge and dove in off the side of the boat *for future reference I’d recommend keeping your mouth closed* but this water was so clear I could see all the way to the bottom, and it was beautifully warm, we all happily paddled around for hours. I’ve never seen water so clear so to swim in it with the mountains above was completely breath taking.

I can think of worse ways to spend a Thursday afternoon, we lay in the sun trying to decide which one of us had been braver for jumping in and listened to the waves. So peaceful and actually quite uplifting to realise how un-scary jumping in had turned out to be

We spent the rest of the day exploring the caves, chatting and checking out the turtle nest sanctuary. We even saw a turtle on our way back to the bay which was an expected surprise

Not a bad view for a scoop of ice cream to wash the taste of salt from a day on the boat..

This final photo is probably my favourite, we were flying home on the Friday lunchtime and mum and I had made plans to get a few hours by the pool before we left, and weirdly without an alarm I woke up at 6:55am (not a habit of the week I can assure you) just in time to watch the most amazing sunrise from the terrace outside my room, absolutely breathtaking and such a calming way to end the week.

I’m hoping to get the boyfriend on a plane before the end of the year but I’ve still got lots of travel snaps to share so I’ll still be posting travel diaries far into the winter! Any destination recommendations please let me know!