End of the seventh week and it’s another travel day. After 10 days on Corfu (thoughts on Corfu at the end), we’re on the homeward stretch now.
It was an early start for Phil and Linda with a 5:45 taxi to Corfu airport. They had two flights today, one to Athens and the next to Paros. They’re back on their own adventure now… great to catch up with them and hopefully it’ll not be another 8 years before we see them again.
Our start to the day was at 8. Up, showered and tidying the house. Yeota’s parents arrived about 9 and we were out by 9:45. Hopefully they appreciate us stripping the beds and cleaning up before we left.
The intent was to grab some brecky on the way to the ferry, and after an aborted beach (road too steep) and taverna (not serving food), we found a place on the sea front in Ypsos (we think). They were serving a respectable scrambled eggs and coffee. It didn’t help our brecky search that it was a Sunday.
Then on to the the port in Corfu town by 11:30. We had tickets for the 1PM sailing but the ticket guy offered us the 12 o’clock boat, which we took and drove straight onto the ferry.
It was a smaller ferry than the one we caught from Igoumenitsa, and much quieter for being a Sunday.
And then, about an hour and 45 later, we were back in Igoumenitsa. The plan was to do a bit of a shop for some food for the ferry tomorrow, get some diesel and then head to Elena’s Camping for the one night we’re here.
But… pulling into the Masoutis car park it became clear that Sunday trading rules are a bigger thing on the mainland than on the more touristy Corfu… it was shut.
New plan.
Lidl was also showing to be shut on Apple Maps, as well as many of the mini markets we clicked on. But, there was a mini market showing open in the small town of Plataria, just past Elena’s camping.
So we took a punt and headed off to the one open shop we could find. We sort of had enough food for this evening, and the morning, and the campsite has a busy restaurant, but we only had scraps and we wanted a bit more to eat than that. We could do a bigger shop in the morning.
First stop was diesel. There are a few BP garages in Igoumenitsa, one selling at 1.51, one at 1.49 and the one we chose at 1.47. Odd they’re all different. And the one we went to had a pump attendant too!
Then off to Plataria. The first market was shut but the second open. So, tuna and tomato sauce with protein noodles for tea – we know how to live it up!
On getting to Elena’s, it was much busier than the last time we were here, pretty full by the early evening. And the restaurant looked to be full too… but they didn’t have tuna hash and noodles!
We were given a choice of pitches on the rows away from the water, behind the washing facilities.
We picked a slot next to a Bristish camper van.
They turned out to be from Stratford and had spent 3 weeks or so getting to here. They’d spent a week or so in an AirBnB around Brindisi and were here for 8 nights.
The Parrot Sketch
Then another Bristish van arrived next to us. This was the home of Jeremy, Helen and Jaffa!
They have a boat they’ve been working on for 14 years, on the island of Evoia.
Helen and Jeremy are quintessentially eccentric British. Jaffa is a parrot! They bought their camper van because they “could no longer fly” to Greece with Jaffa. Jaffa likes to swim with them in the med. And then on the way here this time, they’d been stopped by the Italian police because Jaffa was sat on Helen’s shoulder as she drove the van. However, The police were only interested in getting a selfie with the parrot! Gotta love Brits abroad!
Helen and Jeremy also told us their story of how their van got flooded out when they’d left it in a boat yard while they were on their boat. The water came up above the internal floor of the van and wrecked a lot of the electrics and gearbox (3 fluid changes then a rebuild). Lesson to be learnt there!
We both had a swim in the water and then headed back to the van for a read and our tuna.
Today was the first time we’d been able to try out our new anti-bug device… as suggested by the slim-and-trim brigade in Agios Gordios – burning coffee grounds.
We had a few Dolce Gusto capsules left over from Mylos that we couldn’t probably use, so we poured the contents into a dish with some tin foil to protect it and… it seemed to work. But of course there may not have been any bitey-things around last night. More on this in later episodes.
The evening was capped off by a visit to the washing area where Jeremy was having a shave with Jaffa on his shoulder. Priceless!
Thoughts on Corfu
Hmm. It’s a very beautiful island. Inhabited by very welcoming and friendly people. The views are, mostly, stunning and the waters are blue and clear. But we’ve ruined it!
Corfu now seems to exist almost exclusively for tourists. There must be sections of the economy that aren’t touched by tourism, but I suspect even they would fall into ruin if the tourists went away.
For sure, Corfu has benefitted economically from the tourists, but at what expense. There is still litter everywhere and there are many half finished buildings sitting quiet. There are even more villas, apartments and hotels under construction waiting for a further tourism increase. The food is relatively cheap and the weather fantastic for a week or two away. But there’s very little left of the old Corfu.
Hmm.
Tomorrow we’re off to Brindisi and the proper Italian leg of the trip. We’re thinking it’ll now take us between 2 and 3 weeks to get back home. No big rush, but we’re starting to feel the pull.
Fleur and Bill are about to get married.
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