Friday morning started out stormy and cool with major thundershowers but it cleared up fairly quickly and we headed out to see a bit more of Paleo, as it's know for short. We first headed downhill to Agios Spiridon, the next beach over from us and the largest and, usually, most crowded of the beaches in the area. This is the one the tour buses flock to--there is a huge bus parking lot to handle them. On this morning the beach is extremely quiet due to the early morning storms and the still cool temperature. And only a few tour buses in the parking lot. Right next to Spiridon is Agios Petros, not much of a beach really but the views in the bay are spectacular and thus the bars and restaurants around it are packed with sun beds. Then we headed up the hill between these two beaches to the Monastery of Paleokastritsa. We got really lucky as there were only a few people inside the Monastery with us. But, by the time we were leaving, the tour bus throngs had arrived and we had to fight our way through to get out.
Then we headed up the road the other way from our apartment to check out the views along that way. We did wander down a foot path to check out one of the beaches, Agia Triada, which is basically the beach for one of the big hotels--not really our cup of tea. Along the way, we stopped for drinks at a nice bar with a pool and on the way back, we headed halfway down the hill for a good lunch at Dolphin restaurant, which was obviously very popular. The afternoon finally cleared enough for some beach time back at Alipa. In the evening we headed back over to Agios Spiridon for dinner at Nikos Restaurant.
Saturday morning, we caught the "Green Bus", just up the road by Dolphin, to Corfu Town to explore the old town a bit. The old town is bracketed by the "Old Fort" on the east and the "New Fort" on the west. Both are Venetian designs, with the current configuration of the Old Fort largely completed in the mid 1500's, though there had been fortifications there dating back to the 6th century AD. The New Fort was constructed in the late 1500's/early 1600's, but most of the interior buildings date from the time of British rule in the 1800's. There is an active Greek navy base inside now. We toured the inside of the Old Fort, which is quite impressive (we've been to more than our share of old fortresses). Spianada Square is a huge park area right across from the Old Fort with dozens and dozens of restaurants along one side of it. A big part of the square is the iconic cricket pitch, a vestige of British rule, that is still used for official tournaments and other matches. It is surrounded by parking lots and roads, which constitute most of the boundaries and I distinctly remember when I was here way back in 1985, watching players chase balls out into the traffic!
We wandered the winding laneways of the old town, which are very, very busy but do lack the interesting architecture of, say, Bari, as they are not nearly as old. We found a great restaurant for lunch, Bellissimo in a back laneway during our old town wandering. It must be on somebody's "list" because we got there just as it opened, around 12:15, and in no time there was a line-up and people just kept coming. After a bit more wandering--we found their equivalent of the "mink mile", among other areas--we made our way out to the "Green Bus Terminal" not too far from the old town and headed back to Paleo. (Green Buses go between towns, while Blue Buses are within Corfu town. Of course, the buses aren't green or blue--they can be any colour.) Later, we went back down to Limani Taverna, where we had eaten our first night. They had live entertainment (bouzouki), but we were pretty tired and left before it started.
2025-02-18