You made it very easy and all the well timed reminders were welcome
Jenson was so helpful and attentive it made the booking a happy experience and I would certainly recommend him to my friends. Thank you so much for such great service
Thanks for your assistance
Very pleased with the arrangements and advice from start to finish.
Riley is brilliant and has all our needs covered and made sure we had an excellent trip
Excellent service as always
The hotel was great! It was very close to all public transport stations. The food was good at the hotel and the range for breakfast was modest. I will gladly go back to this hotel. Great birthday present for my husband.
Best place we stayed - clean, food excellent and staff.
Your help and support were second to none. I would highly recommend you and I have already suggested to friends to contact you
This trip was for a wedding and Glen as always was great assistance throughout. Fantastic recommendation on hotel and arranging flights for a large group. DialAFlight offer a super service. Always deliver. Can’t recommend them enough
Luggage did not arrive in Graz when we did. We had to go back for it 10 hours later. Not a good start.
DialAFlight performance is excellent - just a shame the car company that was booked wasn’t good.
Elizabeth is great, really helpful
Great job, as always!
I would like to thank Jack Sulliman for arranging our trip to Madeira. Everything went like clockwork.
Once again Guy delivered - superb hotel in Puerto Banus. Highly recommended.
Great holiday. All aspects perfect.
Slight hassle with the taxi transfers to and from the airport. After a few messages, and a phone call from our hotel to our driver for the return journey, it all resolved itself.
Craig was so helpful - really excellent service!
Peace of mind and lots of info and reminders. Thank you
Highly recommend.
Excellent service, would not book with anyone else!
Everything ran smoothly. Lovely hotel - good value for money.
First rate service. Fast and efficient under time pressures.
Adam Siu is so helpful in sorting out all our trips and ensuring all runs smoothly.
Excellent, thank you!
Nicholas Brew was great throughout. We had a few problems our end (my son lost his passport and we had to change some of the names in the group) but all was OK.
Reece and the team are first class, friendly professionals. Very reliable, it's why we always book with DialAFlight. Would thoroughly recommend.
Hotel very tired - needs a complete revamp - staff lovely
Excellent service from Sean who made booking this holiday so easy and pleasant. The holiday was perfect - everything was beautiful and the complimentary upgrade of our hotel room was superb.
'Over there,' said our driver gesturing to a smudge of land barely discernible in the gathering dusk, 'is Ithaca: the home of brave Ulysses.'
He put the stress on 'brave' as if there might have been another Ulysses around who had less of an appetite for man-to-man combat.
Nikos, our driver, was a man of the classics, it appeared. 'According to legend, Ulysses spent ten years fighting the Trojans in the Trojan War and then it took him ten years to get home after the war.
'This journey home is the story of The Odyssey.'
We were on Kefalonia, the sixth largest of the Greek islands, which sits between Ithaca and Zakynthos - far to the south of Corfu.
Unlike Corfu and other tourist-savvy islands such as Rhodes and Crete, Kefalonia still has the look of a place surprised to find itself in the holiday business.
If Ithaca has Ulysses, Kefalonia has heroes of a more recent vintage. The island was the setting for Louis de Bernière's modern classic Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
FIT FOR THE BIG SCREEN
And, surprisingly - as Holly-wood almost never seems to shoot films in their authentic setting - this was where Penelope Cruz, Nicolas Cage and Christian Bale came to star in the film of the book when it was made here in 2001.
The locals are ambivalent about the film, as it makes narrative capital out of the two worst events to affect the island in living memory.
The ill-fated occupation by the Germans during the Second World War (which resulted in the massacre of more than 5,000 Italian troops as portrayed in Captain Corelli's Mandolin); and the terrible earthquake which destroyed large parts of the island in August 1953, killing 600 people and making thousands homeless.
Driving across the island today, however, there is little to suggest recent troubles.
Kefalonia radiates a quiet contentment, perfect for someone who has arrived, like us, searching for utter peace and quiet. What quickly endeared us to Kefalonia was that this was a 'real' place where the locals clearly have a life beyond tourism.
The capital, Argostoli, for example, is charming, with a substantial fruit market near the harbour. Of particular interest in the harbour are the turtles, who have become something of a tourist attraction. Another endearing factor, to me, is that there are few sights thought of as mandatory. Our only outing was to take a drive round the island to the harbour town of Fiskardo, 30 miles north of Argostoli.
FAVOURED BY THE STARS
It has become popular with the rich and famous as the perfect place to tie up their luxury yachts as they make their way around the Mediterranean.
We had a fabulous lunch at a harbourside restaurant where our waiter confided that Tom Hanks and his wife were on a yacht nearby and were expected to arrive for lunch imminently.
We strung out dessert as long as we possibly could, but Mr Hanks didn't put in an appearance (or perhaps he is so good at disguises that we didn't recognise him).
Fiskardo is one of the few villages on Kefalonia that were left undamaged by the 1953 earthquake: its handsome Venetian buildings are an impressive sight.
What was also impressive is that while the place is probably the nearest thing that Kefalonia has to a major resort, it didn't really feel like a tourist honey pot -it certainly wasn't crowded.
And, best of all perhaps, the excellent meal was very reasonably priced.
The island has only recently begun seeking to attract tourists and doesn't seem to have been alerted to the possibilities of ripping off visitors.
We took our trip to Fiskardo in the evening when the heat was tempered by a cooling breeze from the sea.
Close to our apartment were plenty of good tavernas and bars where we could enjoy a reasonably priced meal in the evening.
It may have taken Ulysses 20 years to return to Ithaca - we shall be heading back to Kefalonia much sooner than that.
First published in the Mail Online - April 2018
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