Kefallonia
 

Captain Corelli's Island. Does anyone have any experience here? Place for a base, hotel or B&B? We are going for a week in early July and hope to find somewhere convenient but quiet. No resorts or package deals. We will not be hiring a car. Interested in history, a day on a beach, maybe a boat trip, sitting around in tavernas.

and no cruise ships....

Fiskardo.

full stop.

Perfect.

Anywhere south of the fault line of the 1953 earthquake was destroyed and replaced by architectural dross. North of the line retained its older buildings.

Also easy to take day boat trips to Ithaca which is beautiful.

BritishCaicos, my Rough Guide tells me that 'Fiskardo is the islands premier resort'. Does that mean package tourists? If not, it sounds perfect as you say.

Kefalonia is a developed tourist island with direct charter flights from Europe so Package tourists are in every resort on the island. Cruise ships are not in large numbers so not a worry.

Argostoli is the main town and the most central and not really covered by packages.
Fiskardo is a small village package resort primarily for yachties, poor dirty stoney beaches nearby and it's not central so not much good without a car.

It is not the islands premier resort by any means, it gets a load of daytrippers as it's an obvious stopping point at the north end of the island, and people passing through for ferries to Lefkada.

The Rough Guide is way off the mark, I know so because of staying in Argostoli, Nea Skala and Fiskardo, all three at least twice.

Our cruise ship stopped there last October so if you want to avoid "cruisers" you might want to check out a website that lists how many ships will be in port the week you will be there ;;) Deborah

Thank you Retsina and DeborahAnn. :) I sometimes wonder if the guidebook writers have actually been to the location recently. I have got a lot of good info from the people on TA forum and also a cruise-ship website for avoidance purposes. I think we are going to base ourselves in Argostoli and take buses from there. If you have any advice re accommodation please share.
Thanks!

<i>" I sometimes wonder if the guidebook writers have actually been to the location recently."</i>

Often not. I see the same mistakes repeated edition after edition for islands I know well.