During the first exploration in 1951, an ancient lamp, which is now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Argostoli, was found there. The excavations of 1962 were made by S. Marinos and produced few but important relics of a former Minoan culture on Cephalonia. Oil lamps, plates and figures show the god Pan and several nymphs. This is, why the cave is sometimes called Cave of the Nymphs. The lake was named after one of the nymphs, the nymph Melissanthi.
Lake Melissani has an absolute invisible specialty, which sounds pretty strange. The lake water is brackish, a mixture of sea water and sweet water. The cave is about 500m from the sea, and the water level is a meter higher than sea level, and the brackish water rises from a 30m deep cave system on one side of the cave and flows silently to the other end of the cave, flowing through narrow crevices into the sea.Here the water from the Katavothres on the other side of the island reappears. This was discovered by dye tracing experiments in 1959.
The cavern, once two big chambers, caved in several thousand years ago. Today the cave has the shape of a B, with two big water filled halls and an island in the middle. The first hall has a big oval opening to the surface, where the sunlight shines in. When the sun is directly overhead, its rays strike the ultramarine water, lighting the cave with blue light. So the best time to visit the cave is on a sunny day at the middle of the day. Nevertheless, a visit at the morning or in the evening has its own atmosphere. The boats seem to hover on a lake of blue light.
