"One of those days in England......"

…....with the country goin' broke......."

A day out in Corfu Town

On Saturday we had a rare ‘gig free’ day off, so we decided to have a day out and explore Corfu Town, not the tourist spots but the bits that we have glimpsed on route to and from the airport run.
As usual we didn’t get an early start and once we’d stopped for pastries at the excellent bakery on the main road just on the outskirts of Corfu town, (2 spinach pies later) it was midday; Oops! We parked at the old harbour and took the short cut through the town and across the “Liston”

This is a beautiful tree lined square with a large grassy area, which in the height of summer is packed with cars, motorbikes, horse drawn carriages and tourists. It was so quiet and deserted! We carried on past the fort and onto the road that runs alongside the sea front.

We have often driven past this area and it always looks interesting. So we set off walking and discovered streets with beautiful roof top gardens and tavernas that seemed to cater for the locals rather than the tourist trade. The whole area was quite run down with many derelict buildings

and overgrown boulevards

but it was really charming too and retained a character that has been lost in some other parts of the town. There were signs for European funding projects taking place to revitalise the area and there was evidence of these old buildings being restored and brought back to life.

We walked to an area known as Mon Repos. (named after a 2 Ronnie’s sketch?).

“The tumbledown structure of the basilica, built by bishop Iovian in the V century, is located across the road of the entrance into the park. The park is filled with various vegetation and refreshing coolness, especially urgent during hot day. The monastery of Saint Euphemia hid behind the hedge. A little further, along the path there is the small palace Mon Repos. Formerly it was a summer residence of Greek kings, now here is the museum, where the archaeological finds, assembled from the adjacent places are collected. Further the path leads to the heap of the stone blocks, partly stowed, partly scattered. This is the temple of Hera (Heraeum) of VII - IV century B.C. Still further there are the ruins of the Doric temple of Artemis.”

This quote above is from a great blog by a Russian tourist, see link below
http://www.eikones.zoxt.net/en/ker3.html

They were charging 2 euros to enter the gardens and jump off the pier into the sea so we decided to give it a miss! The café’s here were characterless, purely tourist rip off places and they even have a little motorised “train” to carry people to this part of town from the Liston and conveniently bypass the run down areas we had just walked through.

It was boiling hot and although we had brought bottles of water with us we were both feeling the effects of the midday sun, so on our way back to the car we detoured down tree lined avenues which led to the main square in the town past some incredibly beautiful villas and apartments.

It was just after 2pm when we walked through the town and through the marbled streets back to the Liston. It was so quiet in town, people had probably gone for their siestas, and it was great to see the streets so empty.

We decided to have a drink and a ‘meze’ in one of our favourite bars on the Liston; (basically you can have a glass of wine for 2.5 euros or wine with a meze for 3 euros, which is a small plate of local meats, cheeses, olives, chips and bread! Bargain!)
As we were being served, we noticed several men wearing cricket whites. Our waiter explained, that every year, on this UK Bank holiday weekend, a cricket team from England is invited to take on a Greek side as part of a traditional 3-day annual event! We watched them warm up and then commence play as if it was a Sunday afternoon on a village green somewhere in the English countryside. The only difference being, it was 30 degrees in the shade and not raining! The Liston is probably half the size of a cricket pitch and they were using proper cork balls!!!! Cars were still parked nearby and any boundaries scored went under, over or into the cars or 30 feet in the other direction, so the ball could land amongst all the high-class bars and tavernas, which surrounded the area! It was a bit biazzar to say the least. But stuff that legends are made of. We have often heard of this cricket match-taking place but could never have imagined how they played on such a small pitch or that we would ever see it happen! They even had their Cricketers WAGS quaffing champers and eating clubs sandwiches. Shouting “jolly good show what”!!!!!

We had a fascinating few hours watching this spectacle (and 3 wine mezes) before returning through the deserted streets to our car and back home.

"One of those days in England..... chompin' baked beans in my coat

Tell me when it matters, love, I might just wanna get out of bed to see"

(by Roy Harper.......for those of you who care!)