Day 64 ~ It's All Greek To Me!

March 27, 2018, Corfu, Greece

 Travelling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station’.  ~ Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

I couldn’t resist that quote because today begins an eight day marathon of port days for us without a single sea day as a respite!

This was our only view of Santorini

After missing our stops at Santorini and Aghios Nicolaus, Crete, the bridge crew set a westerly course to pass south of the Peloponnesian peninsula. Then we headed north, leaving the Aegean and entering the Ionian Sea. (Point of interest: On this trip, we’ve sailed more seas than I knew existed—Tasman Sea, Java Sea, South China Sea, Andaman Sea, Arabian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Aegean Sea and now the Ionian.)

After so many sea days, I was ready to get off the boat this morning!

The excursion team also had to go into high gear to arrange for tours for our previously unscheduled call at Corfu. This island has been under control of various entities throughout most of its history. The Corinthians claimed it before the inhabitants of Corfu entered into an alliance with Athens. The Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Italians, French, and English all took turns. The only invading force the residents managed to repel was the Ottoman Empire. That’s why the architecture on the island bears little resemblance to the white-washed sugar cube houses and blue domes we’d expected to see on Santorini and Crete. All the conquerors left their mark here in Corfu.

But some who came, came for love. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We boarded our tour bus for drive into the mountains and to a traditional Greek village called Kato Garouna. Our guide as an informative young lady named Elene, which she explained was the same as Helen in English. When I dubbed her Helen of Corfu, she got quite a kick out of it.

Helen ofCorfu

Kato Garouna was as un-touristy as one could hope. The streets were not cobbled exactly, more like smooth slabs of stone. As we walked along, I made sure to glance down every space between the cheek-by-jowl houses and was rewarded!

Off the main streets, narrow alleys wound around and up and down. All homes must be painted certain colors, a terra cotta red, pale orange/yellow, dusty pink or cream. The effect is a lovely color palette, but what I would call “deferred maintenance,” the inhabitants seem to regard as charming. Mold and lichen abound, and every roof and eaves trough sprouts with grass and moss.   

Helen led us to a small museum housed in an old olive oil factory where we saw the old olive press still in its place.

In an adjoining room, a craftswoman demonstrated the art of carpet weaving. She uses “Persian knots” for her work, and the carpet is so dense, there are 600 knots per square inch!

  

Then we stopped by a taverna for a Greek snack—olives, goat cheese, salami, and homemade bread with olive oil. The bread was perfect, crusty on the outside and soft inside. 

We were told we couldn’t have water, but we were required to have wine! The DH took a glass of white and I chose red, so we could both taste each of them. Both vintages were very dry, which we like.

Next, we visited Achilleion Palace, built for the Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the late 1800’s. She was obsessed with Greek culture, and the structure is designed with Achilles as the central theme.

The home is filled with elegant statuary and paintings, like this exquisite private chapel.

Every place you look there’s something amazing. I kept reminding myself to look up. These corbels were embellished with statues.

Once outside, we negotiated an uneven set of steps up to the Italian garden arranged around a huge bronze statue of Achilles looking out over the Ionian Sea.

The statue is so large it had to be shipped to the island in pieces and reassembled in the garden.

Another statue of the hero Achilles dominates the other end of the garden, but in this one, he’s not the conquering hero. According to myth, Achilles’ mother wanted her half-god son to be immortal so she dipped him into the River Styx. All of his body was protected against injury except for the heel his mother held him by when she dunked him. In typical Greek tragedy tradition, Achilles carried the seed of his own destruction inside himself. In this statue, he’s dying after being struck in the heel by an arrow.

Our day in Corfu was lovely. After all the stark, sandy vistas we’ve been treated to lately, this lush, green island is a balm for our dry eyes. If we ever are fortunate enough to come back, there are many more things I’d like to see and do here—the convent on Mouse Island, the new fort built by the Venetians in the 1500’s, and the old one from much earlier. The list goes ever on…