Zakinthos is A Beautiful Old Greek Island to Explore and Admire

This is the town of Zakynthos on the southwest part of Greece.  Tuesday was another beautiful warm and sunny day so we did a "journey ashore."  Here we are on a bus going into the countryside above the port.

Like our last port - we had to take a ship tender to come ashore.  Here is the Prinsendam anchored out in the bay.

The landscapes were wonderful to experience.  In the middle of the picture above, far off on the hill is a memorial Cross dedicated to the "undesirables" that the Nazis threw over the cliff there during their occupation during WWII.

We visited this old monastery that was built in the 1400's.  Much of it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1953.

Many monks were buried in the cemetery of the monastery.

 We were surprised that some areas of the island were covered with thick forest.

This hillside was burned off by one of the many fires the island experienced this summer  due to extremely hot weather and also a few arsonists. 

This Olive tree was more than 5000 years old.  There are approximately  2-1/2 million Olive trees on Zakinthos.

We got a tour of this olive factory.

Here is the factory with old equipment on display to show how the olive oil processes have evolved over the years.

Inside we got a guided tour from this man.  He spoke very good English.  We learned that today the olives are heated first, and then the oil is extracted by centrifuges. 

The end of the tour included virgin olive oil tasting.

Besides olives, grapes are grown on the island.  The grapes are black and not used for wine.  They are made into raisins and most are sent to England.

Our bus tour ended up at the port town of Zakynthos where we saw this statue of the town's most famous citizen.  His name was Solomos and he wrote the Greek National Anthem that is played at the beginning of all Olympic Games.  He wrote 36 stanzas but we learned that only four are usually sang by the Greek people.