Laganas: McDonats or Piggys

Happy Days at McDonats

George, with Rouli, the driving poodle

Angelo & Dina

Laganas is home to the logger-head turtle and to the drunken 18-30 crowd. It has become a cesspit in recent times, wih its notorious strip of bars and dodgy nightclubs. It’s horrrific.

Only a few hundred yards east up the beach and you find a different world. However, most of that place has now completely changed and been transformed from what it was in the 90s.

The bars here, McDonats and Piggys, are now (or were the last time I walked down from Kalamaki) named ‘Toad in the Hole’ and ‘Car Hire.’ Yep. Piggys has been pulled down to make way for a car port where tourists can hire vehicles. You can still see the remains of the gaudy yellow floor tiles of Piggys Bar where the cars now park. I doubt if the current owners even know there was a bar there!

For years Angelo used to send me correspondence. He wrote poetry and also worked on a local radio station. The bar was a financial tightrope. Dina worked for Olympic at the dreadful old airport. She gave us the best-ever send-off at any airport; she organised for us to bypass security and the police and go straight to the plane. You should have seen the looks on the other passengers’ faces as we slid past the queues straight onto the tarmac!

Zakynthos, the true flower of the Levante.