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The Kerkini Boat home page: below the line "Lake Kerkini National Park · Serres, Greece", the headline "Lake Kerkini, open to everyone", its second line in pale italic, over a dark-tinted photograph of the boat's covered deck with the skipper at the wheel and the lake and mountains beyond; under it, a short introduction, a rust "Book a boat trip" button, an outlined "See the boat" button and four figures: 35 seats, 8–10 wheelchairs, 300+ bird species and sign-language commentary.
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Kerkini Boat — Accessible Lake Trips, Stay & Car Rental

Overview

Kerkini Boat is a family business in the village of Kerkini, in Serres: Spyros Sfetkos runs the first boat on the lake built for wheelchair access. The deck is flat, boarding is by a wide ramp at deck level, nobody is lifted out of their chair, and 8 to 10 wheelchairs fit on board together with their companions among 35 seats. Commentary can be given in Greek Sign Language when it is arranged at booking. The same household also lets a self-catering apartment and rents cars, so the site has to introduce three services without burying the one that makes the business unusual.

Greek leads and English follows as two complete sets of files with identical names and structure, not strings swapped by a script — the site is written to be read by search crawlers and AI assistants as much as by people, which is why it ships a hand-written llms.txt beside a generated full-text version of every page. There is no framework and no build step, and nothing is fetched from anyone else: the fonts and the animation library come from the same host, a decision the privacy policy states plainly. Motion is decorative and fails open three separate ways, so a page whose JavaScript never arrives still shows everything it has to say.

Challenges

A site about access cannot be vague about access. The boat is genuinely wheelchair accessible; the apartment, a traditional village house, is not — and saying that plainly, on the same site, without undermining the business, was the hardest call in the copy. Three services also compete for one front page, each arriving from a different search: a trip on the water, a place to sleep, a car. Bookings are taken by phone and WhatsApp only, with no email address and no form, so every page had to make the next step obvious without the usual contact funnel. And the audience is split between Greek visitors and international birdwatchers, photographers and disability groups, so neither language could be the afterthought a JavaScript toggle produces.

Solutions

Greek and English ship as two complete sets of pages with the same filenames and the same structure, each carrying its own canonical, hreflang and structured data, so both read correctly with JavaScript switched off. Header, drawer and footer are generated into all 22 pages from shared partials, and a checker validates links, assets, alt text, heading order, canonicals, structured data and a 150 KB budget per image before anything ships — there is no CI, so the gates run from the command line. Accessibility was measured rather than assumed: 3,055 text nodes across all 22 pages at two widths, zero contrast failures, and no horizontal scrolling between 320 and 1920 pixels. The accessibility statement lists what the boat offers and says plainly that the apartment is not fully accessible; the capacity and the sign-language commentary live in the structured data; and fonts and scripts are self-hosted, so no visitor is handed to a third party.

Gallery

  • The Kerkini Boat home page: below the line "Lake Kerkini National Park · Serres, Greece", the headline "Lake Kerkini, open to everyone", its second line in pale italic, over a dark-tinted photograph of the boat's covered deck with the skipper at the wheel and the lake and mountains beyond; under it, a short introduction, a rust "Book a boat trip" button, an outlined "See the boat" button and four figures: 35 seats, 8–10 wheelchairs, 300+ bird species and sign-language commentary.

    A Home Page That Leads With Who Can Come Aboard

  • The section "Three services. One host." with a short introduction about Spyros Sfetkos and three cards, the first raised with a shadow under the pointer. Their photographs show the boat's deck with rows of red life jackets under a timber canopy, the guest house at dusk with a lit garden and carved wooden birds, and a white Kerkini Cars hire car in front of mountains; each card has a label, a title — Boat trips on the lake, A place to stay, Car rental — a short description and a link.

    Three Services, One Household, One Row

  • A dark teal panel labelled "Accessibility · A first for Lake Kerkini", with the heading "The first boat on the lake designed for everyone", two short paragraphs, four points with round icons — Level boarding, 8–10 wheelchairs, Greek Sign Language, Secured & safe — each with a short explanation, and a note at the bottom asking visitors to say what they need when they book.

    The Claim That Sells the Business, Stated in Four Points

  • The section "One of Europe's most important wetlands" on a sand-coloured background: a photograph of three white pelicans swimming in shallow water in front of a meadow and trees, beside two paragraphs about the Ramsar wetland, its birds and its water buffalo and a link to the lake guide; below, four large figures: 300+ bird species recorded, 2000 water buffalo in the area, 1932 the year the lake was born, and Ramsar, wetland of international importance.

    The Wetland in Four Numbers, Counted Up on Arrival

  • The section "From the jetty and back again" on dark teal: five numbered steps on a vertical line — Meeting at the jetty, Out onto open water, Birds and buffalo, The drowned forest, Back to the jetty — each with a short description, beside a tall photograph of the boat's deck with red life jackets along both benches and the skipper standing at a wooden console at the far end.

    The Trip Told Step by Step, From Jetty to Jetty

  • The accommodation page: the label "Kerkini's Harmony House" and the heading "A house, not a hotel room" beside a photograph of a single-storey house with a tiled roof, a solar water heater and a veranda, on a wide lawn under a blue sky with mountains behind, followed by three paragraphs; below, a band headed "Availability and booking" explaining that bookings go through Airbnb, with a rust "Book on Airbnb" button.

    A House in the Village, Booked Through Airbnb

  • Two tables on dark teal. "Lake facts" lists location, type, year created, protection, birds, buffalo and mountains: Serres, Central Macedonia; an artificial lake on the river Strymonas; 1932, the Lithotopos dam; Ramsar, Natura 2000 and National Park; over 300 recorded species; about 2,000 buffalo; Belles and Mavrovouni. "How to reach us" gives the times from Thessaloniki, Serres, the airport and the Bulgarian border, with a note that public transport does not reach the viewing points and a link to rent a car.

    The Facts Visitors Look Up, in Two Plain Tables

  • Three contact tiles — phone +30 6986 911 811, WhatsApp +49 1520 2401637 and the address Kerkini 620 55, Serres — above the heading "What to tell us when you get in touch", a short paragraph, a ticked list of five things to mention, among them whether anyone uses a wheelchair and whether it is powered, and two buttons: WhatsApp and the phone number.

    No Form, No Email: Two Numbers and a Checklist

  • The home page on a tablet: the headline "Lake Kerkini, open to everyone" over the tinted photograph of the boat's deck with the skipper at the wheel, the introduction, the two buttons side by side and the four figures in a row; below the hero, the start of the section "Three services. One host." with its introduction and the tops of two cards, and a rust "Call us" button floating at the bottom right.

    On a Tablet, a Call Button Follows Every Page

  • The section "The lake changes every month" on a tablet: an introduction and season cards in two columns — "November – April, Pelicans in winter light" with a photograph of pelicans in shallow water, and "All year, Buffalo in the shallows" with a photograph of water buffalo grazing — then the tops of two more cards, a pair of storks on a nest and a small owl on a tiled roof against a blue sky.

    A Reason to Come in Every Season

  • The section "Stay where the noise stops" on a tablet: a photograph of a covered veranda with a round wooden table, metal chairs with cushions and potted plants, looking out over a lawn, then the label "Kerkini's Harmony House", a short description, four ticked features — full kitchen and coffee corner, air conditioning and heating, private garden and veranda, free parking — and two buttons, "Book on Airbnb" and "More & photos".

    The Apartment on the Home Page, One Tap From Airbnb

  • The section "Everything you need, already there" on a tablet: ticked amenities grouped under Kitchen & dining, Comfort and Outside, and below them a note with an information icon headed "Travelling with a wheelchair?", saying that the apartment is a traditional village house and is not fully accessible, and offering a phone call to describe the door widths, steps and bathroom.

    Amenities Listed, With an Honest Note for Wheelchair Users

  • The accessibility statement on a tablet: a section on the apartment saying it is not fully wheelchair accessible, a section on the website listing eight ticked commitments, from contrast ratios and keyboard access to reduced motion and 200% zoom, a section headed "What is not yet perfect" about the third-party map, and the heading "Found a barrier?".

    The Page That Also Says What Is Not Accessible

  • The home page on a phone: the location line over two rows, the headline "Lake Kerkini, open to everyone", the introduction, the "Book a boat trip" and "See the boat" buttons stacked, and the four figures over two rows, all on the tinted photograph of the deck with the skipper at the wheel; a rust "Call us" button floats at the bottom right.

    The Whole Promise Fits on One Phone Screen

  • The car rental section of the home page on a phone: a photograph of a white hire car with "Kerkini cars — rent a car spiros" on its door, in front of mountains, then the label "Kerkini Cars", the heading "The lake is big. Take your time.", a paragraph naming Mandraki, Lithotopos and the mountain villages of Belles, four ticked points — delivered to your accommodation, Thessaloniki airport pickup, fully insured, no hidden charges — and a link to the cars and terms.

    The Car Pitched in Four Ticks, Before the Rental Page

  • The section "Questions about the boat trip" on a phone with the first question, "How does boarding work with a wheelchair?", open: the boat comes alongside a fixed jetty, passengers board over a ramp level with the deck and stay in their own wheelchair, secured with a restraint system. Further questions sit closed below it, each with a plus sign.

    The Questions Asked on the Phone, Answered Before the Call

  • A paragraph on a phone about Kerkini as a Ramsar wetland, a Natura 2000 site and the core of a national park, whose water spreads wide in winter and withdraws in summer, followed by four figures stacked one above another: 300+ bird species recorded, 2000 water buffalo in the area, 1932 the year the lake was created, and 100 km from Thessaloniki.

    The Lake Explained, Then Summed Up in Four Figures

  • A photograph open in the gallery's full-screen viewer on a phone: water buffalo grazing in a green meadow, one of them in the water in the foreground with its head and horns above the surface. The counter reads 2 / 4, with a close button at the top, previous and next arrows at the sides and the caption "Water buffalo grazing and swimming in the shallows" below.

    Real Photographs, Filtered, Then Swiped Full Screen

  • The section "Five drives worth making" on a phone, on dark teal: a line saying that all of them start from Kerkini village and fit into one day, then five ticked destinations, each named in bold with a short description — Lithotopos dam, Mandraki, Ano Poroia, Rodopoli & Vyroneia and Serres — and a link to the guide to Lake Kerkini.

    Five Day Trips That Give the Car a Purpose

  • The contact page on a phone: three stacked tiles for the phone number +30 6986 911 811 with the note "Spyros answers", the WhatsApp number +49 1520 2401637 with the note "Best for photos & detail", and the address Kerkini 620 55, Serres, Central Macedonia, Greece, followed by the label "Bookings" and the heading "What to tell us when you get in touch".

    Every Way to Reach Spyros, One Tile Each