Lefkada Town & the lagoon

Lefkada is joined to the mainland by a causeway and a floating bridge, which is why so many people arrive here by car rather than by plane or ferry. The bridge lands you directly beside the Agia Mavra fortress and the town, a low, earthquake-wise place of timber-framed houses with painted metal upper storeys — built that way on purpose, so they shake rather than fall.

The town itself is a pleasant evening rather than a destination: one long pedestrian street, a marina, three small museums and the kind of tavernas locals eat in year-round. Behind it the lagoon is shallow, still and full of birds, with the windmills along the Gyra spit and Ammoglossa curling out into the channel.

As a base it is practical rather than beautiful. You are five minutes from the bridge, half an hour from the best beaches on either coast, and in a town that works in May and October as well as in August. If you want to swim from your hotel, stay down the east coast instead.