"We are the Village Green Preservation Society"...

The view from Afianos village overlooking Arillas & the San Stefanos headland where we live

This year we have decided to have some days out walking instead of just exploring out and about in the car. Also May is cooler so it’s a good opportunity to don our groovy walking sandals and climb some hills.

Lemon Trees & Olive Groves
We had already done the cliff top walk from our house in San Stefanos (NW) across to Arillas village, so today we decided to venture further and walk over to the lovely old village of Afianos; which is perched high on the headland looking down on Agios Georgios Bay to the south and the open Ionian Sea to the north. A view from a cliff top Taverna

Afianos is where Paul and Milena have booked to stay in August, and where we briefly visited them when they stayed there for our wedding holiday. More panoramic views of the Arillas bay
From Arillas we walked up the very hilly and winding road and through the olive groves to Afianos. As soon as we got to the edge of the village we saw an old Greek woman shearing her sheep! V exciting, Liz has become obsessed with spotting little old greek ladies over the last 3 years?? "God save mrs. mopp and good old mother riley..."

Anyway, we asked her in our best Greek if it was ok to take a photo. She was very sweet and obligingly posed with her sheep. Then she proudly asked us to feel the sheepskin that was on the ground in front of her; which we did and it was grim, it was oily and very smelly; but we told her it was very beautiful.

One sheared sheep minus its coat which is on the floor in front of sheep n owner

Not much further up the road we saw another Greek woman, this time in traditional dress, she had dragged a hosepipe across the road from her house to water her veg patch, whilst her frail looking husband sat in the garden shouting instructions to her and she was muttering away back to him. Little ol' lady carrying the regulation blue plastic bag; ...over the years, everywhere we go in Corfu we have constantly seen ‘little old Greek ladies’ walking up hills with their blue carrier bag. We have a theory that they are on their way back from the local ‘dealers’ house and the bags are full of ‘grass’ & “E’s” for the “liddle ol’ lady” raves they have once the tourist bus has past. lol. As we got further into the village we kept seeing donkeys tied up in every field, old & very smelly! Then right on cue a woman came walking down the road leading her heavily ladened donkey, for another touristy photo op. carry that load!
This started to feel like we were on the set of a Film featuring ‘traditional life in a Greek village’; or something the local tourist board had arranged for the tourist season. A sort of “Beamish-os” or Jorvik-eos does my ass look big etc........
All the gardens had chickens in, vegetables growing and the most fantastic flowers, it just got more beautiful the further into the village we walked.
You have to walk through very pretty narrow winding streets where no cars or bikes can go; to get to the top of the village, which takes you out onto a hill overlooking both the Agios George Bay and the Arillas Bay.

The intrepid Liz power walking through the village

a view through a garden gate

Millstones various sizes!!!!

And here we saw a Greek woman bringing her goats in for milking and another old lady was hammering wooden stakes into the ground for her vegetables.

Panoramic view of Agios Georgios

One of our favourite days out so far.....

"Preserving the old ways from being abused;

Protecting the new ways for me and for you

What more can we do......"

More soon.......L&K