Vassilikos Travel Guide
Vassilikos usually refers to the whole area around the Gerakas peninsula that makes a long finger to the east of Laganas Bay on Zante. A succession of good beaches along the peninsula’s east coast have become very popular recently with a spate of hotel building, although the area’s classification as a nature reserve has helped to keep much of the development low key.
Among the east coast beaches which run from Porto Roma, in the south, to Porto Zoro, in the north, is the main Vassilikos beach, which is also referred to as Banana Beach, probably for the benefit of tourists. Soft sand slopes gently into shallow sea making the beach popular with young families and there are showers, sunbeds and watersports. Some areas of the beach are reserved for turtle nesting and watersports will be curtailed, especially during the nesting and hatching seasons. There no village as such but the main drag has a few tavernas, a mini-market and some shops. There are good walks over the peninsula through dense woodland chequered with olive and citrus groves. Much of the tourist activity in this part of the island tends to be confined to all-inclusive hotels or to luxury villas and apartments with summer beach bars providing snacks during the day.
There are regular daily buses to Zakynthos Town, about 17 kilometres away, and there is car and bike rental as well as a taxi rank at the road junction for Agios Nikolaos.