A trip to Corfu Town
Despite last nights cocktail and tequila session at Joy's Cafe I felt surprisingly ok this morning, my wife wasn't feeling quite so good but she was up for a trip to Corfu town. We were determined to also visit Mouse Island, Trip Advisor was very helpful in working out how to do this.
The buses were fairly frequent and run until just after midnight.
I started the day with an iced coffee and we headed down to the bus stop.
The blue bus took about 35 minutes to get from Dassia to Corfu Town, it was an incredibly hot day again so the air con on the bus was quite a relief.
Breakfast today was a packet of crisps.
Once in Corfu Town I noticed the really shiny pavements, be careful in flip flops!
We headed from the bus stop to the Old Town.
It was quite busy and much bigger than I was expecting, I visited Corfu Town in 1987 but nothing here seemed particularly familiar.
The far end of the Old Town was much quieter.
The views were pretty impressive.
We decided to take a look inside the Asian Art Exhibition, the entrance fee was just €3.
This dog was relaxing in the shade outside.
The Museum of Asian Art is housed inside the stunning Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George. Sections are cut away to showcase the amazing detail of the Palace.
I was most fascinated with the Japanese art on display here.
We left the exhibition and ventured into the depths of the Old Town, this area looked like a nice place to eat, we decided to return here later for some dinner.
The narrow streets were lined with a vast selection of souvenirs and local crafts.
My wife bought some of these almonds, the sweet coating was delicious.
We could have been healthy and bought some fruit here.
The ice cream parlour next door won us over though, the chocolate flavour here was really nice, my wife chose her favourite flavour pistachio.
I kept hearing about cheese pies and wondered if I had finally spotted some.
We jumped on the Kanoni bound bus, it was time to visit Mouse Island.
From Kanoni we could see Mouse Island in the distance.
Before visiting Mouse Island we went to take a look at Vlaherna.
Vlaherna is occupied by a small 12th century monastery which you can go inside.
From Vlaherna you can take a small boat to Mouse Island.
It costs just €2.50 for the return boat trip.
The boat used to make this short journey is quite small.
The views from the boat are amazing and the journey takes about 5 minutes.
Mouse Island is a hilly, wooded island hosting a 13th century Monastery, there's a small shop too selling drinks and snacks.
This friendly dog rushed over to join us as we sat down.
I suspect he was more interested in our spinach pie though. A generous spinach filling inside feta pastry, we really enjoyed it and so did the dog.
My main reason for wanting to visit Mouse Island was that the airport runway was very close, this gave excellent views of the planes coming in to land.
Back in Corfu Town I found myself resisting the urge to try this, what was I thinking!?
This banana juice drink was a good find though and it didn't last long.
More friendly cats greeted us as we wandered around the Old Town.
We returned to the Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George and went to take a look at Adrian Ginsberg's collection of 156 black and white photos in his exhibition called Corfu - The other side. The images address the fundamentals of life: toil, poverty, loneliness, religion, faith, alienation, old age and death.
The photographs depict from a very unusual and profound perspective
rarely seen images of the vanishing traditional life of Corfu.
Next we headed towards the port passing this unusual sight along the way.
The Hotel Ionion had closed its doors for the last time and sat derelict.
We seemed to recall reading about a cruise ship that was docked in Corfu that could be explored by visitors for a small fee. We made our way towards the docks hoping to spot it.
Once at the dock we realised the cruise ship open to the public must have been located in another country, or perhaps we had dreamt it.
We walked back into the Old Town once more in search of the restaurant we had spotted earlier, I was quite surprised to see a Marks & Spencer here.
It took some searching for but we finally found our restaurant.
We soon realised we hadn't chosen wisely though, this was an overpriced tourist restaurant. €5 for 2 slices of garlic bread seemed a bit excessive compared to prices we had paid elsewhere.
The food was still fairly nice though, we shared a Greek salad.
Before the main course arrived the heaven's opened, this created panic for the nearby shop owners who rushed to take their goods inside.
I couldn't come to Greece without trying Moussaka, this was really nice and like many other dishes served with a sprinkling of chips.
My wife ordered pepper and tomato stuffed with rice, she wasn't overly impressed though.
After dinner we headed back to the bus stop and waited for the no 7 back to Dassia.
You can buy bus tickets from the machines on the streets, a €5 day ticket allows you to spend all day exploring the island catching any bus you want.
This little fella followed us from Kato Korakiana all the way back to the villa.
Kiki had made us some delicious roasted vegetables, you really couldn't ask for a better host!
The roasted vegetables went nicely with the homemade tzatziki and fresh tomatoes.
Back in Ipsos
My Greek girlfriend was here a couple of months ago and she made me the stuffed pepper and tomato dish....looked and I'm guessing tasted a lot better than that one!
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