What Is Lefkada Known For?

Lefkada takes its name from the white cliffs marking its southern tip, and those same cliffs carry one of ancient Greece's most enduring literary legends.

Lefkada is known first for Cape Lefkada, also called Sappho's Leap, tied to the ancient poet Sappho, one of the nine canonical lyric poets of antiquity, who lived on Lesvos in the late 7th century BC and wrote openly about love and longing, including toward other women, a body of work significant enough that the word lesbian derives directly from her home island. Legend holds that Sappho leapt from these cliffs after her love for a sailor named Phaon went unanswered, though many scholars today doubt the story's accuracy, suggesting it may have originated with ancient comic poets mocking her, or later been reshaped by Christian writers uncomfortable with her sexuality.

The site carries an older layer of history too, since ancient sources describe a temple to Apollo once standing near the cape, tied to a ritual practice in which criminals were thrown from the cliffs as a form of purification, with survivors granted a pardon. That tradition, along with the Sappho legend, gave the cape a lasting association with dramatic leaps that persists even now, drawing modern base jumpers and paragliders to the same clifftop.

Lefkada is also known for its unusual connection to the mainland, since Corinthian settlers dug a canal separating the island from the coast around 650 BC, originally to allow warships passage, and a modern floating causeway, built in 1986, now lets cars cross the same channel directly, making Lefkada one of the few Ionian islands reachable without a ferry, connecting it easily to Kefalonia and Ithaca by boat for anyone extending the trip.