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