R&R on Corfu!

Sunday 25th to Wednesday 28th April
Yet another glorious day and we walked/biked up to the monastery again where there is a great view of the Alpine swifts which have just arrived and are playing on the wind below our position at the monk’s cafe.

No Alpine Swifts but Alec and Rosie!

We then set off on a magical mystery tour of the north west of the island - not intentionally. For some reason, 1 wrong turn led to another and before we knew it we were at the top of peaks on tiny roads in villages which probably aren’t below the cloud level very often. All very interesting but we had originally been trying to find an alternative flatter area to move to which would enable us to do more on the bikes. Anyway, this changed our minds and we are pretty happy at the Apollon Hotel so have decided to stay here all the time and just bike out from here. The hill away from the bay is not that bad and at least it will be downhill all the way home!
Coming back from supper in the tiny hillside village of Doukades we were surrounded by fireflies which were lovely. In the glades and amongst the olive trees they looked like fairy lights so we spent some time trying to photograph them without much success. If you got too close they become coy and switch off. It is rather similar to when we used to take the girls to see Peter Pan at the Arts Centre in Poole, they are remarkably like Tinkerbell!

Rosie spent a lot of time in the dark trying to photograph a firefly. Eventually this one was run to ground in a tree trunk. You may have to blow the picture up to see it!
Hello, Rosie here! I arrived late on Friday night, in the rain, which fortunately stopped shortly after. I need not recount the supper we had, but it was probably one of the best so far. Whether due to the demi-litro of Greek wine I had to myself or just because it was the ‘atmosphere’ I do not know, but it was certainly a very nice evening.

and on our 33rd wedding anniversary too!

It has been hilarious out here with them, not doing very much, but we are hoping to get out on a boat to visit the local caves sometime, and we managed to hire me a bicycle today. Before now I had been out on M’s trying to get her milometer to a higher count than Dad’s. ..


Vivi has paid Rosie to ride her bicyle around in circles to try and get her mileage up to match mine - paah!!

Not an easy feat when either direction is uphill. I cycled for 45 mins yesterday and only achieved 5 miles, which as I was turning around in the car park at the bottom and the car park next to the monastery at the top of the hill, means I only cycled 2.5 miles!
The hotel has the most fantastic view from the balcony, and the owner’s pretty amusing. We like to mix things up by sunbathing on the beach sometimes too. I am constantly having my skin colour commented upon, first by the cleaner, who has mentioned it twice now, and just this minute by the man in the local supermarket, I shall take Mum’s advice and leave off the block for a few minutes “as it seems to be doing too good a job”...


another one of the bay which Rosie mentioned.

Paleokastritsa, Corfu.

Corfu.
We cycled into Corfu town and went to the cafe where the hire car co had told us to wait till 8.30. It was now 7.30am so we had a bit of a wait but no sooner had we ordered a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino than the smiling son of the car hire man turns up with the wrong size car; but hey ho we managed to get one bike in and chained the other to the railing and set off in search of a bed. We should mention, that Corfu is pretty closed in April despite the weather being pleasantly warm and the flowers a riot of colour.
We wanted to go the Agios Georgios for no other reason than tomorrow is St George’s Day, Shakespeare’s birthday and extraordinarily our 33rd wedding anniversary. Agios Georgios, nice little place – was closed! So we tried Arillas, Sidari, Lipades and finaly Paleokastritsa where we struck lucky and unloaded all our gear into the Apollon Hotel run by Craig (a lad from Dorset) and his Greek (business) partner Spiros. We txt’d Rosie the view she could expect from her bedroom – provided the Icelanders don’t disrupt the flights again!!


View from the monastery down to the bay where we are staying, just right of the trees.



The view from our balcony - not many people here as it's a bit out of season!!

As someone had said when we were in the Peloponnese where the north, south east and west all have completely different identities, the same goes for the Greek Islands. Corfu (where we’ve been once before 15 years ago on a ‘teenage’ family holiday), is no exception. Here everyone seems very relaxed but the landscape is clean, tidy and farmed meticulously.

Very rural here!





Olive nets all rolled up and ready for next season.

These are almost the first nets we have seen; from Spain through Italy and then the Peloponnese, they were put away immediately the harvest was finished. In quite a few places here they are still spread out under the trees, which looks pretty untidy and you would think that the grass would grow through them.
Having been up at the crack of dawn we had a very lazy afternoon.
Supper was the worst meal in a very touristy restaurant in the village, but it is the only one open at the moment so we will have to go further afield.
Friday. Oh dear, dark clouds gathering and lots of rain forecast. Of course the U.K. is basking in sunshine so we hope it gets this out of the weather system before Rosie arrives tonight. We drove down to the southern half of the island which there is very little about in the guide books. The southern part is club 18 – 35 land but fortunately it’s the wrong time of year and anyway it only starts at 10pm! The south west coast is incredibly rural and we drove for miles through fertile valleys and over perpendicular peaks. We were amazed by the variety of birds and completely failed to identify two kinds altogether. Anyway we found the airport and set the timer for our trip home to see how long it would take to come back. The journey ought to take about 30 minutes even including going through Corfu town, but today 4 cruise ships had come in. The whole town was gridlocked with tour buses the drivers of which have an astonishingly self centred attitude, possibly for the benefit of their customers! So an hour and a half later we were back at our hotel and almost immediately had to leave as we quite fancied a walk around the Corfu town before we picked Rosie up. It is now raining quite hard!
Amazingly the airport which was there this afternoon had moved, could we find the way into it – no! But eventually we were outside arrivals just as Rosie came out. On the way in we had stopped at a roadside BBQ type fast food shack and Vivi had enquired as to whether they would still be open at 11.30. Probably was the answer so slightly anxiously we headed back there and sure enough he was so we sat down in his charmingly rustic cafe, he told us what type of lamb we could have, slapped a variety of tsatsiki type things in front of us a litre of white wine to which he then kindly added another half and we ate like kings (and queens).
Saturday
In the morning there wasn’t much sign of Rosie but there again she was 2 hours behind us! The good news is the sun is out, the sea has calmed down and it looks as if we are in for a good day.
The beach which is only the other side of the road seemed like the best place to be, so we lay on it and watched bus loads of school children disgorging to be shown the monastery. Not many of them can have been that interested, as the boys spent the time antagonising the girls and vice versa, climbing on the wall, splashing each other and generally fooling around. With what can only be described as amazing bravado two boys who had stripped to their underpants to swim came over and asked Rosie if she would let them dry themselves on the towel she was lying on. She was so taken aback that for a moment I thought she was going to say yes, but common sense fortunately prevailed!!
After that we wandered up to the monastery where there is a bar with a spectacular view

View from the Monks bar!

The monk's dog, we suspect he gets fed at irregular times so tends to help himself to what's available!

and were entertained by the monk’s donkey who seems to act as early warning of intruders and also shepherd to the monks flock of goats and sheep.

The monk's donkey who in the morning herds the sheep and goats down the hill to graze, takes himself back up here and then collects them again in the evening!
After the children had gone, the diving school arrived. We think that it must have been day one of their course because it took them 45 minutes to get out of their clothes and into wet suits, and then for another 30 minutes they sat in a circle in very shallow water and appeared to be doing nothing. Finally they submerged leaving behind the rubber ring with a flag on it to warn off passing speed boats (another thing for Vivi to worry about!!)
We found a Cretan restaurateur a few miles away who treated us to some great Cretan specialities washed down with his own raki (just like poteen (Sp)) and Cretan wine. We told him we had just read a good book about Spinalonga the leper colony off Crete but he wasn’t much interested in talking about that. Alec and I are taking it in turns to drive home as the roads are very windy - lucky Rosie didn’t bring her driving license.

Now you MUST look at the video I've finally managed to put on the blog it's next!! - after the divers!

macho divers preparing, they must have the patience of Job.

Diakofto back to Patras & last days on mainland Greece.

Tuesday 21st April.
Diakofto back to Patras
Day dawned, the sun mercifully has come out again and we knew that we really were going to have to drag ourselves away from this very comfortable accommodation. At the railway station the jovial ticket man, come porter and for all we knew, driver assured us that the train left at 10.55. As it was only 10.25 we left the bikes and went off in search of a postcard for Pat. On returning to the station five minutes later a deputation was waiting by our bikes urging us to ‘get on board’ as soon as possible. So we flew about like lunatics threw the bikes and all the luggage into the guards van, apologised to everyone and flopped into our seats – only for nothing to happen until 10.56 when eventually the train tooted it’s way out of the station. What that was all about we don’t know, maybe they were just being helpful and ultra efficient.
But what really impressed us as we chugged our way west was the distance we had traveled on the bikes to get to Diakofto. It really seemed like miles and we congratulated each other.
In Patras we’ve booked our tickets to Corfu and now just hope the ash cloud disperses and Rosie gets out to join us. Vivi has had a haircut, we’ve had an unpleasant experience with some minor (in age) beggars and the bike spoke has been fixed – and that’s more than we’ve done in one day for some time, we would normally save a couple of those jobs for tomorrow!
The very smart new haircut, wash, blow and dry. And a new friend!




If anyone had told us that we would be hanging around bicycle shops for hours at a time, we would not have believed it! However, Harry’s bike shop is a real hive of activity and there is a constant flow of customers. We met up with one of the students we had seen on bikes a month ago, and had a long chat with the ‘Ozzie Greek’ who was full of information of where and what to do last time we were there. We were almost disappointed that the spoke was mended so fast, but had we attempted to fix it ourselves it would have taken days. Harry is the nicest chap and never seems to charge for anything.

Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd April
Patras to Corfu
There has been a lot of hanging around in the last few days and today was no exception. The boat to Corfu leaves at 23.59 tonight so we have a long day ahead. We walked a long way up to the old castle and the Roman stadium and other ruins. These are situated well above the new town and the views are beautiful.


Looking down, possibly on the Greek economy!

Unfortunately, the local powers that be have rather neglected to take advantage of the possibility of enticing tourists here. The castle looked impressive from the outside but sadly was all locked up, there is graffiti everywhere and nobody cares.


Marble steps leading down from the Roman Odeon, the castle and the stadium.
We thought we’d see if we could drop the bikes and our luggage off at the ferry and then go out for some supper but they weren’t having that, so rode back into town. It was then that the whole ‘great escape’ almost came to an end. Crossing the railway lines which do not cross the road at right angles but run at an angle almost along the road I got my front wheel caught in the rut (this is the moment when Vivi heard that male alarm cry Oh Phaaaark!!) and I took a dive over the handlebars landing on my palms and knees. Extraordinarily nothing broke but there was no time to sit and feel sorry for myself, the next thing I heard was the clang of a train and a hundred moderately concerned Greeks urging me to get out of the way.
On boarding the boat we took the now obligatory photo of the ferry and met a young Canadian couple staggering under huge rucksacks – both front and rear. They asked how long we’d been traveling for and when we said about seven and a half months (and thought rather smugly that’ll impress them) they replied that they left Vancouver 9 months ago and had been heading West ever since!!




The ferry was amazing, the biggest boat we’ve ever been on and our cabin vast (well it would have to be it was the only one left due to a surge in passengers because of the Icelandic volcano eruption!) – if we didn’t have to get off at 6am it would be a real pleasure to be on!

and then it was gone!


and within minutes it was gone and we were all alone with nowhere to stay on Corfu.

Sunday and Monday 17th/18th April
Still in Diakofto.
In an over-enthusiastic moment, at 2.45 a.m Alec had assured Dick we always breakfast at 8.30’ish so when we woke with a shock quite a while later Dick had been up with the lark, bought the oranges, croissants, met half the other tenants and was already exhausted! We had a very lazy day visiting the beach-side taverna for lunch and generally sitting around enjoying the sunshine.


Dick, not playing with his Blackberry or mobile - it was hard to keep up with such a popular fellow!!

Very sadly Dick left in the early evening and we felt awfully flat and quiet on our own. I almost became offended by Alec going on about how much he was missing him!

Us, and Dick's shadow!!



This town is amazingly quiet, not too many barking dogs, and the bird song is lovely. Our flat is surrounded by other holiday homes which are mostly empty, and a few orange and olive groves. There is a rather good smell of olive wood bonfires as the Greeks are pruning the olives like mad - quite drastically with chain saws, so I am studying how they do this in order that I can attack our rather pathetic olive tree at home if it has survived the frosts and cold winter. They also pollard the mulberry trees down to nothing and we think this may shock our mulberry into action as it has never produced any fruit.
We had a bit of an ‘Adam and Eve’ moment this morning whilst out on the bikes as we needed some more oranges and had passed an orchard looking unloved and coming down with oranges. I persuaded Alec to eat one - fortunately no serpent involved but he didn’t enjoy it one bit as it was a Seville orange and incredibly bitter. He made an awful fuss! It seems an unnecessary expense to buy oranges and lemons when they are rotting on the ground but no one is ever around to enquire as to whether we can buy some from them.
All the flowers are out, and the roses are fantastic in the various gardens; no sign of any greenfly but I suppose this is because it is a dryer climate.
We are staying here in Diakofto for an extra day as it is most comfortable and we aim to take the ferry to Corfu from Patras on Wednesday night. We have spent several days in Patras already so there doesn’t seem to be any need to be there any longer than necessary.
We are watching the volcanic ash cloud closely in case the flights to Corfu from the U.K. are grounded later in the week. We had our first rain today and a rumble of thunder. We want the wind to stay in the east so that the volcanic ash cloud stays away.
As I speak Alec is painting a picture of the gorge our balcony overlooks, I have caught up with the washing and now may have to catch up with my book or sleep - it’s a difficult decision!

Looking up what I call the Khyber Pass, the dark object to the right of the house is not a labradors head it's an olive tree!!
(This decision was then made for us as it began to pour. We thought better of swimming and instead caught up with some much needed sleep.)
We went out for supper and were amazed to find that the restaurant we’d had lunch in the day before full of locals, was now completely filled with Brits and Americans. Are they all stuck here? I don’t know why we react so badly to hearing our own language being spoken, we are certainly going to have to get used to it on the long trek back up France.

dick staying in Diakofto

Friday 16th April
Diakofto and Korinth
Almost the only thing we achieved today was that Alec stood above the Korinth Canal and was able to marvel at the engineering of it. Nero started trying to build it in the 4th century AD, but didn’t get very far. For two millenia they dragged the boats and cargo on rails overland to the sea on the other side. It was finally finished in the late 1800s and is very impressive. Sadly although we waited on and off for about 4 hours no ships came through the canal whilst we were there. We didn’t even see someone bungee jump off it either so it could be described as a ‘quiet day’



Central Corinth near the
entrance to the canal.







Looking over the bridge down

to the canal below.

Most of the day was spent getting there and back firstly by bus, then a train, a bus, another train and a bus yet again. Fascinatingly, manners and queuing are clearly not taught in Greek schools because as soon as the train doors opened the hordes waiting on the platform began forcing their way onto the train, allowing no opportunity for the people on the train to get off. How senseless are these people!! They are digging up the railway and it took over 2 hours to travel about 70 miles. However, we could not have done it by bike as the road is dreadful so it was worth it.
Our steak from the butcher was large enough to feed us for a second night and we had passed a van loaded with globe artichokes so we bought a bundle and they were delicious - and this time we got the wine right!

Our new mates - the Artichoke men!!

Chickens - fast food!

Saturday and Sunday 17/18th April.
Diakofto and kalavryta
Luckily we were fairly organised by the time Dick arrived at 10.30am as he had left Athens pretty early and had a good run here. We had a lovely day out, driving up into the mountains to explore the area Around Kalavryta which is a renowned beauty spot. We decided against taking the rack railway as it was pretty limited on times so Dick very kindly drove all day. We climbed up and ever upwards with stunning views down into the Vouraikos gorge which legend has it was made by Hercules when he cut the mountain into two halves with his sword.

So high it makes your toes tingle, Vivi stayed in the car!

The almond blossom was in full bloom on the mountain side and the whole area has a very alpine feel.

Almond blossom.


Not entirely surprising as it is a ski resort. This winter has been so mild the snow has mostly gone. I made Alec wear long trousers and winter gear instead of his usual flip flops and shorts as I thought it would be freezing. It was boiling so he muttered a lot about being too hot. Fortunately he was in the back of the car, as I feel sick on windy roads so we ignored him! At the very top of the mountain stands the Monastery of Aghia Lavra . It is also known as 961 Monastery as it was built in that year and had 961 monks in it for some time. It is of national importance as this is where the Greek Revolution against the Turks started in 1821.

Dick and Vivi under the tree where the Greek anti Turk revolution began.

Monument to the revolution.

Some of the swords and arms used in the revolution are on display along with other ancient books. It is an odd feeling to be in a monastery surrounded by weapons. We wandered around it being closely watched by a couple of monks (women are only allowed in if they are not wearing trousers or ‘provocative clothing’) Well, I was in jeans so I wrapped myself in a long apron type piece of cloth by the front door, not wishing to offend, but felt very self conscious as all the other women were clad in jeans every bit as tight as mine, so dispensed with the apron pretty quickly. Strangely the monastery didn’t have a religious feel to it at all, which was a bit disappointing but this may have been because most of it is very modern as it had been burnt down a few years ago. On the top of the neighbouring hill is a memorial to all the brave Greeks lost in the revolution. They also had one of the worst atrocities of the 2nd world war here when the Germans massacred all the men from the village and burnt the town.
We had a leisurely drink in the town square and headed back down the mountain,

A refresher after the monastery!

stopping at the honey stall and then for a delicious lunch at a taverna on the side of the mountain with stunning views.

Dick's idea of a great view!!

A roadside Honey shop.

When we got home feeling exhausted we lay on the beach in the sunshine, Alec swam, the others were too wet!!

We decided to stay in for supper and had arranged with the butcher to collect a chicken later. When Dick and Vivi went to fetch it he enquired as to whether they wanted anything doing to it. No no thanks they said - just as it is. Within a split second he had a huge meat cleaver out and had chopped it in half, they were so surprised they only just managed to stop him from quartering it! So we didn't have quite the English roast we were expecting but it was very good.

Dick's flat was by far the largest so we decamped to his place for supper; this was fine but he is an extremely bad influence on both of us and when we finally rolled into bed at about 3am the dawn chorus was already starting.

From Patras to Diakofto

Tuesday 13th to Thursday 15th April
From Patras to Diakofto
Not much to write about from these 2 days .
Since leaving Patras we have had a pretty tedious time bicycling towards Korinth. We were full of enthusiasm as we are heading West-East along the Korinthion Gulf and it is a very flat part of the world.
There is a very smart new motorway which we had hoped would take all the heavy traffic off the old national road, but the first 25 miles were a nightmare as these enormous trucks with equally long trailers attached thundered past all the time. At times there is not much verge and if you are the one in front you wait for a scrunch and bang from behind, and if you are at the back you wait for the screech of brakes and to feel yourself flying into the concrete wall. It is very tiring as you have to concentrate rather hard all the time and it is also very noisy. Quite apart from that you have no time to look at the glorious coastline alongside. We stopped at the first place we could find in the quiet bay of Psathopyrgos where the only person we could find to help us only spoke Italian. Thanks again to North Foreland Lodge we were able to communicate! We had a lovely evening; there is a typical bay, lots of tavernas and twinkly lights, boats and bored locals sitting around playing backgammon.
The way back to the village for supper was a stroll along the beach.
Boat park!

The hotel was run by a very nice English girl (our age!) who told us that the Greeks don’t like to pay the first toll from Patras so they do this stretch for free instead on the new toll road. Once past Egio, things would improve. It did for a short while, but probably only because it was lunchtime. We turned off onto beach roads at every opportunity but they mostly end at the beach, in an annoying fashion instead of heading along the seaside.

Outside the aptly named Cafe Paradise!
On the quieter bits it is very attractive but definitely ‘second home’ area with very smart villas all closed up interspersed with orange and olive groves. The frogs make the most fantastic chorus and the skops owls have just started calling at night, which is most evocative of our honeymoon on Syros.
On Wednesday we set off optimistically as in about ten miles things should improve (traffic wise) but it didn’t and to make matters worse we ran out of potential accommodation to the point that we went into places, looked at what they had to offer and declined it.

The longest tails and shortest legs ever worn by a dog!
But once again something happened, a seriously muscle bound cyclist appeared from a cottage and we flagged him down and asked – hotel please! He just said follow me, which I did and Vivi gasped – just come back and fetch me. Anyway he led us to a hotel which looked closed but miraculously was open and it was very comfortable. They only took cash and as we hadn’t passed an ATM for a while that meant supper was on a serious budget, but having explained the situation to the beach bar we went back to they rustled us up pork and lamb chops to die for and everything was just great!
Thursday 15th April
Two good things have happened overnight, firstly Dick is coming to spend the weekend with us (added bonus- he speaks Greek !) and to visit Kalavryta and secondly Rosie has been told by the RSC to take a week off so is flying to Corfu where we will meet her next Friday. It is extraordinary to feel so empowered as to be able to say – yes, Corfu no problem. If an Australian cousin flew into Birmingham and said come and see me, 9 months ago we would have said ‘er maybe – ‘can’t you come here’!
Today we only had about 5 miles to do to the village of Diakofto where the ‘rack rail train’ takes you up the gorge to Kalavryta and we were determined to do this off the main road not on it which would a) be safer b) quieter and c) possibly shorter. 12 miles on and after some fascinating sights

A rose with a jasmine mixed into it, smells delicious!

This chap had a serious problem getting his pots across the railway line all in one piece.

Ah...Bottlebrush
we finally arrived but it had been worth it, we had quiet & safe (2 out of 3) and had had a lovely ride. Not that lovely as Vivi’s bike sounds terminally ill and turning it upside-down and much ooing and ahhing from locals with strimmers, chainsaws and assorted spanners has not made a stitch of difference. The final diagnosis is that a spoke broke yesterday when she fell into a drain and since we have no idea how to repair this we’ll have to go back to Harry in Patras and have it fixed.
In Diakofto we cycled from one end to the other and couldn’t find a place suitable for both us and Dick but then mercifully noticed that a perfectly horrid looking hotel facade disguised a garden full of luxury self catering apartments which turned out to be (almost) perfect, so we’ve booked ourselves in for 4 nights. All these decisions having been made in a matter of minutes the only thing left to do was spend the afternoon on the beach and have a swim,

Just to show how clean the water is, and

for ARTS sake!
fishermen went in and out and the waves lapped it was lovely.

At 5 o clock an Armada of tiny fishing boats disappeared over the horizon in search of who knows what.

Tomorrow we take a bus to Korinth as I am determined to see the canal, it won’t be like Murray and Amanda’s trip through the Panama canal but that one can wait for another adventure!

The evening didn't end too well. We bought a huge delicious steak and a bottle of red with a label we recognized to go with it. It was only when we opened it that we realized why we recognized it, it was the same sweet liquor wine we had bought the last time we thought we'd have an expensive bottle of wine. Ah well...

Bananas and Saints

These failed to load on the last blog back at the church!

Look...bananas!

Banana flower