Summer holiday on Corfu

If i had to choose one word to describe the island: green. It has such a great location that teh whole island is covered with rich forests, olive plantations and wonderful flowers. The island has many hills and mountains which make it a very scenic place to make excursions, you can see the green hills and the majestic blue sea, it's a wonderful sight!

First time i was there i learned that Gerald Durrell lived there a large portion of his life, so the second time i went i took two of his books with me. It was so much fun to read his hilarious descriptions of the people and places of the island while experiencing it myself. His books are the perfect beach reads on this island!

Quick Tips:

The island bus tour is a good bargain if you don't want to rent a car, because they take you to all the places that are worth visiting and to places which you wouldn't dare drive to on your own. (See my separate entry for the tour!)

Best Way To Get Around:

There are buses running between the towns and to the capital of the island (Kerkira or Corfu town), but your best bet is to rent a car or motorbike and explore the island for yourself. Because it is a relatively small island it is perfect for daytrips, you can drive around in a day. Bicyles are OK for shorter distances, but because of the hills and mountains it can be quite a hard ride if you are biking further away. As with all holiday resorts, you will put your feet to good use walking around at night when everything is alive and celebrating the summer. There are tavernas and bars everywhere along the coast, explore a few kilometres to find your favourite one!

Messonghi is a small beach resort next to the more busy Moraitika and has mostly apartment buildings rented to tourist. While we were there we heard several horror stories about some of the other apartment houses, but ours was perfect. This was also the only one that had its own swimming pool.

There are about 15 studio apartments in the building, each has one bedroom with a double bed, a small kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. It was clean and tidy, and very quiet, because the building is surrounded by a garden and overlooks a small river. It is about 200 meters from the beach. Supermarkets, travel agencies, bars and reestaurants are all within a 5 or 10 minute walk! The swimming pool was a godsend because the beach wasn''t the best (pebbly and small - see separate entry about that!). There were very few guests apart from us (even though it was in July), and they mostly spent their time on the beach so we almost had the pool for ourselves all day. :)

There is no restaurant or any facilities in the building itself, but the apartments are cleaned every two days and the swimming pool is cleaned every day in the evening.

We had a very pleasant stay here and hope to be back soon...

Everywhere you look on Corfu you will find travel agencies promoting their bus tours around the island. If i haven't tried it twice, i would say it sounds very boring and touristy, but on Corfu, it is not.

The bus usually picks you up at your hotel around 9am. When everyone is collected from their hotels, the bus heads to the capital first, where it doesn't stop, so you just get a feel for it through the bus' windows. (You will most likely want to go back there for a day later, so don't take the tour on your last day on the island!) After that you're taken to the top of a nearby mountain where the famous palace of the 19th century emperor of Austria, Sissi stands. It's a beautiful sight, not to be missed even if you don't take the bus tour, read my separate entry for more info! After the palace visit, the bus heads to the northern part of the island where you visit Paleokastritsa, a lovely beach resort that has a beautiful monastery on top of a hill that overlooks the sea. The view is breathtaking and the monastery is beautiful as well. Usually there is some time left for exploring the little town, which is most often spent either on a quick boat tour of the bay and surrounding area, or a snack or coffee at one of the bars on the beach. After Paleokastritsa the bus heads to the hills. There are several little villages with local crafters and farmers selling their goods. They are there for the tourists but they are nevertheless much cheaper than the souvenir shops in the beach resort towns, and their wares are more interesting and authentic as well. Buy your gifts here if you can! The bus crosses all the hills and it's a beautiful terrain so keep your camera at hand! Some of the roads and villages on the hill will make you grab on to your seat as well... i wouldn't try driving up there! The last stop of the tour is at one of the northern beach resorts, most likely Sidari, which has a beautiful coastline with famous cliffs. It's a nice way to end the day with a swim and walking around the cliffs.

There are some tours which include the southern end of the island too, but this one i just described gave us enough action for a one-day tour and we saw wonderful views from the bus and from the lookouts, so i think it's well worth the money.

Corfu's beaches are not sandy beaches, which is OK if you know about it in advance, but can be a slight disappointment if you expect a broad sandy coastline. The beaches are pebbly, with very small pebbles, and sometimes rocks and cliffs. The water is also populated by sea creatures that are beautiful to look at, but a pain to meet face to face: sea cucumbers, jellyfish and the like. The water is clean, but always take your beach loafers or better yet, buy a pair of beach shoes at the supermarkets (they are available everywhere) and don't go in the water without them. Where we spent our holidays to the south of Corfu city, the beaches were small and narrow, but northern resorts, like Sidari and Paleokastritsa have broader and longer beaches.

Sissi was an Austro-Hungarian empress and she visited Corfu quite often to cure her illnesses with the clean and refreshing air of the island. She had this palace built in 1892, at a beautiful spot on top of a mountain overlooking the sea on one side, and the mountains on the other side. There is a small museum in the building which has relics and ordinary objects from the epresses collection and portraits her and her time on Corfu. It's a lovely daytrip because the views are excellent and the building is a very impressive classical style monument with a breathtaking garden. You can take a bus tour which includes a trip to the castle or walk up to it from a nearby village. The road takes you along nice olive and orange plantations, so it's a nice 1-2 hour walk. It can be very crowded, so your best bet is to arrive early, before the tourist buses do!

I wasn't very keen to go because i thought it will be a fake tourist attraction and not a real folk event. I was so wrong! This turned out to be the most fun night we had on Corfu!

Almost all local tavernas/restaurants offer dance evening once or twice a week where a local dance group performs traditional greek dances. We had a few cocktails and watched the dancers who were quite interesting to watch. Little did we know that in about 15 minutes we would be there dancing around with them. After about 3-4 dances, the girls from the group came to the audience sitting around them at their tables and started asking the girls and women to come dance with them. Of course everyone was shy and hesitated participating, but you just couldn't NOT go, they insisted on you joining them no matter how hard you tried declining their kind offer. So half of the audience was now dancing around with the greeks. The boys and men were of course happily laughing at their women at the tables and sipping their beers peacefully. Little did they know that the next dance was theirs! And not just the dance, the greek dancers showed them some impressive tricks, like how to hold a wooden table with their teeth and the poor men had to do it in front of the happy audience. So about 20 minutes after the show started everyone was dancing, learning moves, carrying tables in their mouth and having much much fun! There is of course a professional photographer there too who takes a picture of everyone in the weirdest dance poses and you can buy the photos (not expensive at all, i was surprised!) later in the evening.

It was a very fun experience!