The eastern shore of this northern most Ionian Island faces Albania and mainland Greece. It is dotted with curved bays and secluded beaches, while the western coast is more dramatic with high cliffs and long stretches of sand. This is a town where time has stood still, yet the modern world invades. It is a contrast in the old, traditional ways and values with the intrusion of progress. About 110,000 people live on this idyllic isle; many of them have never travelled beyond its shores. Instead, the world has come to them in ever increasing numbers from cruise ships who release large numbers of passengers from all over the world. Our neighboring ship in the port disgorged over 2,300 people! Despite this, Corfu retains a fresh open simplicity, and their friendliness is legendary.
The town of Corfu is very old. Over 500 years of Italian, French and British occupation have left their mark on the city. So like all old cities, the interior streets are little narrow warrens winding this way and that. Shops displayed their wares of jewelry, olive oil, bath items and religious doodads in a very pleasing manner.
Our goal for the day was to take a train ride around the city, which we didn't get to do it last year. This is an open train, more like one you would find in kiddie land. Our hopes for doing this were dashed because we had rain, our first real day of heavy gray overcast skies. Today was the first day in four months that I wore tennis shoes, and I must say my little piggies were not happy about that. Carrying umbrellas, we boarded a shuttle from the ship to the terminal where we had to get off of the shuttle and go through the terminal in order to pick up the next shuttle that would take us to the Esplanade. There was a band welcoming the guests. There was a Holland America ship docked on the same pier, so we had to contend with the crowds.
The shuttle took us up and around the old city wall. Traffic was ridiculously tied up because the streets are so very narrow and people parked on both sides of the street in order to go to the farmers market that is held in what used to be the moat.
We didn't let a little rain stop us from enjoying the city, but it kept the train from operating. We wandered through the narrow streets, just browsing. We didn't stay very long because we didn't want to shop (prices were very high) and we had a ship-wide event for later in the afternoon. I needed to save my energy and knees for later. And we had to deal with packing. Yep, it is that time in the trip when the ugly task must start.
We returned to the ship for lunch and packing. I will be glad when this trip is over so I don't have to deal with the damn bus steps -- they are killers, especially the last one from the bus to the street.
The afternoon ship-wide event was to Mon Repos Palace. It is situated on top of Analipsis hill in the area of Kanoni. The remains of the ancient town of Corfu, which have been found opposite to the palace, make archaeologists believe that Mon Repos was built right on the site where the ancient city of Corfu used to be. The palace is surrounded by magnificent park. It was built in 1826 by the British Commissioner Frederic Adams as a gift to his Corfiot wife, Nina Palatianou. It is a small but very beautiful palace with colonial architectural elements. Nowadays this house is used by the Municipality of Corfu as a museum where a tourist can see many Ionian treasures. The park is also a big attraction and is visited by hundreds of tourists every year offering a delightful walk in the cool shade of arcades created by old giant trees.
This is a stock photo from the website
Ok, that's the description given by the website. Here's the description given by Beverly: what a colossal bore and a rundown dump with an overgrown garden that had no flowers.
From the ship we boarded a shuttle to the terminal, had to get off the shuttle to walk through the terminal, then get back on the same bus that we just got off. Everyone was scratching their head wondering why. Supposedly, it was for security; however, there was no security in what we did other than to make people with handicaps get up and down steep bus steps for no good reason that I could see. We did have a nice tour of the outskirts of Corfu, but we could not go through the old city because vehicles would not fit. Upon arrival at the palace, we were dropped off at the bottom of the driveway because the bus was not able to go up and turn around. What they didn't tell us was that it was a half mile hike uphill to get to the palace. I later found out that they had a van that was supposed to drive up and down the driveway transporting people with disabilities or bad knees, but it never showed up when we were there. So I wound up trudging up the driveway on a pair of aching knees (we had no idea how far it was to the top until we started walking and actually arrived at the top).
Of course, it did not look like this when we arrived. There were tents set up on the front driveway with tables laden with Greek style hors d'oeuvres and wine. There was a heavy overcast and threat of rain in the air, but the rain itself held off until after the event was over. There was a tour through the house, but there was not a whole lot in there that was interesting. We headed back down the driveway for another half mile walk to the bus, and came back to the ship where I promptly took a pain pill and iced my knees down.
It was a good night to stay in and have room service and watch a movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment