Hotel header image

Lesante Cape

Zakynthos zinger

Ionian and on and on

Lesante Cape invites mostly passive – nay, horizontal – participation. After all, it hardly requires a Sisyphean effort to receive a full-body massage in the spa, hang out in the hammam, dip your toes in the Ionian’s warm waters or admire heat-hazed views of Kefalonia from the infinity pool. Sunsets that set the sky on fire at Fiore may finally get you to sit up and pay attention, as smartly turned-out waiters deliver fine Mediterranean dishes to terrace tables that seem to levitate over the ocean.

Planes

You may well feel like you’ve left civilisation far behind out here in the Zakynthian countryside. In fact, Lesante Cape is a mere six miles from Zakynthos Airport, around a 20-minute drive. The resort can arrange taxis on request.

Automobiles

While there’s plenty to keep you occupied in the resort, those who yearn to explore the cape’s magnificent beaches and indulge in long retsina-fuelled lunches in traditional hillside villages will need their own set of wheels (and a designated driver, natch). There’s free valet parking at the resort.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

In the highly unlikely event you tire of rolling out of bed and straight into the spa or infinity pool, there’s plenty more entertainment to be squeezed from this apparently sleepy stretch of Zakynthos’ east coast.

Despite its distinctly laid back vibe, Lesante Cape is no slouch when it comes to organising activities both on site and off. Day trips aboard one of the resort’s fleet of private yachts are a fine way to see the sights without wearing holes in your flip-flops. Shipwreck Beach is one of the island's most beautiful and secluded coves. Accessible only by boat (carefully: the clue’s in the name) and with fine, clear waters for snorkelling, it’s a postcard image of cerulean seas, bone-white sands and chalky cliffs topped with lush green vegetation. Bang in the middle of the beach sits one of Zakynthos’ most photographed attractions: the rusting hull of the MV Panagiotis cargo ship, scuttled here back in 1980. For something a little less touristy, Marathonisi island promises tiny deserted beaches and sunlit caves.

Landlubbers can borrow bicycles for exploring the nearby countryside and its remote villages, such as the nearby village of Akrotiri and, just a little further down the coast, the island’s capital: Zakynthos (or Zante) Town. It’s here you’ll find the highest concentration of historical attractions, despite much of the town being laid waste by the Great Ionian Earthquake back in 1953. Belt out the Greek national anthem on Dionysios Solomos Square at the foot of the statue of the man who wrote it and check out altar panels and frescoes salvaged from church ruins in the wake of the earthquake at the nearby Byzantine Museum.

Back at the resort, further activities including olive picking, wine tasting and cookery classes – using produce plucked from the garden by your own fair hands, no less – will inspire plenty of purple prose for your postcards home.

Lesante Cape

住所

Akrotiri, Zakynthos, 29100