Archaeological Sights

Understand the universal value of these unique architectures and feel lucky to have seen them closely. Don't miss the opportunity. Visit the archaeological sites of Lefkada and discover its cultural wealth!

Nirikos: 2 km outside and east of the city of Lefkada, passing through the olive grove, you reach Kalligoni, which has been declared an archaeological site, since there was the ancient city of Lefkada, Nirikos. It extends to the areas of Tsechlibous, Kaligoniou, Karyoton, Lygia, Lefkada Municipality and includes the ruins of the walled settlement of Ancient Lefkada, dating from Archaic to Roman times, the 2 cemeteries of the ancient city,. farmhouses and port facilities that are an integral part of the protected monumental set of the ancient city that was abandoned around 1300.

Agia Mavra Castle: located at the entrance of the island and is one of the most imposing medieval buildings in Greece. It is an original fortification art, built on the peninsula between Lefkada and Akarnania, with an area of approximately 25,000 sq.m. and has the richest war history, compared to the rest of the Ionian fortresses, as it was besieged 12 times in the 7 centuries of its existence.

Nidri: The plain of Nidri, from the foothills of Mount Skaros to the place Magemenos of Nikiana has been declared an archaeological site. It includes Early Greek period tombs in the Steno, box-shaped and tiled roofs and remains of buildings throughout the Nidri Plain, the foothills of Skaros and Mount Amali, as well as in the Paliokatouna and Koloni areas. Also above the village of Poros, there are the ruins of a tower that was probably a farmhouse, as well as the remains of an ancient olive mill from the 4th century BC. According to archaeologists, they were discovered in excavations made by the German archaeologist W. Dorpfeld and are dated from prehistoric to Roman times. Dorpfeld - the inventor of the theory that Lefkada is the Homeric Ithaca and that Odysseus's palace was in Nidri - loved the island so much that he wanted to be buried here. His tomb is at the top of the hill at the edge of the Vlychos peninsula, above the picturesque chapel of Agia Kyriaki.

Vassiliki: This area has been inhabited since the earliest, as findings from the Paleolithic and Neolithic Period (3,500 BC), discovered by Dorpfeld's excavations at Evgiros' Chirospilia, and now exhibited at the Lefkada Archaeological Museum. In the Vasiliki valley, the Archaeological Service has found scattered ancient building remains belonging to an ancient city, and at the sites of Marmara, Pyrgi and Marantochori, the remains of ancient towers.

At Cape Ducato or Lefkata, there are building remains and architectural members of the temple of Apollo Lefkata that were well-known throughout the ancient world. Every year there were national celebrations in honor of the god Apollo, who was the patron sailor and physician of the body and soul. That is why the ancients believed that by jumping off these rocks, the soul would be freed from the burden of passions and atone for sins. In this place, the legend wants the ancient poet Sappho to end her life desperate for the passion of love.