Agios Nikitas (Lefkada)

Agios Nikitas is a small seaside village on the north-west coast of Lefkada, 13 km from Lefkada town and about 40 km (45 minutes) from Preveza. It had 108 residents in 2011 and is a small beach resort, with its houses close to the sea.

The area was lived in long ago: finds go back to the Palaeolithic, and in 2008 road works on the way to Kathisma beach uncovered a small Mycenaean vaulted tomb. The present village is newer. Its first settlers came from nearby Drymonas in the first half of the 19th century, and the oldest mention of it in the Lefkada archives dates from 1816. It took its name from the church of Agios Nikitas, a saint not known elsewhere in Greece; tradition says the first villagers found his icon in a lonely place.

In the early 20th century the village lived from its vineyards, then from olives and fishing. The 1914 earthquake hit it hard. Tourism began in the 1970s.