The Melissani Cave boat ride

Down

The ticket desk, the café and the car park are at ground level. The tunnel, cut in 1963, is about 70 m long and drops roughly a hundred stone steps with handrails to the pier, about 20 m below the surface. On a quiet morning the boats are waiting; at midday in summer the queue runs up the tunnel and the boats leave twelve at a time. How long the wait adds.

On the water

The first chamber is the one in the photographs: open to the sky where the roof fell in, with an islet about 30 m long in the middle where the sanctuary of Pan was dug in 1962. The boatman rows round it. When the sun is overhead, roughly 11:00 to 14:00, the light drops straight through and the water goes turquoise from below; earlier and later it comes in at an angle. Then he takes hold of a rope fixed to the wall and pulls the boat through the narrow passage into the second chamber, which is closed and hung with stalactites dated at 16,400 to 20,400 years, and continues underwater as a siphon about 240 m long. Nobody goes further than the boat. Back through the rope passage, round the islet, and out.

The boatmen explain what you are looking at, often sing, and will take a photo with your phone. Photography is fine; flash and tripods are discouraged. The boatmen keep a tip plate and a coin is usual, not required. The islet, the finds and the water.

Up, and the balcony

The same hundred steps back to the café. Anyone who cannot do them has the viewing balcony above the open chamber, which looks down on the lake, the islet and the boats and gets the midday light from above. The boats are not wheelchair accessible. Every tour on this site takes the boat as part of its day; the four-hour tour from Argostoli is the one whose price includes the ticket that pays for it. Shoes for wet steps.

Book the four-hour tour, boat included

Drogarati, the Melissani boat and the Myrtos viewpoint from Argostoli with both cave tickets in the price. Free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

Frequently asked questions