MEDIA CENTRE - Off The Wall

Phil’s Travels – Corfu, Greece (10.24)

Phil’s Travels – Corfu, Greece (10.24)

Not sure when I last flew out of Luton. Must be at least three years, maybe even pre-C19. In any event, it had not changed much. Still poorly laid out, overcrowded and the parking/roads in constant works. Will they ever finish digging and put their toys away?

At the gate, an easyJet chap came to me in the plebian queue and said my pull-along bag was too big. “It’s a standard size”, I said. He said it was “large”. I said, “How can that be? I travel the world with this bag.” He said it was “large”, then hauled me over to one of the metal basket measuring devices. Here, indeed my bag was “large”. Turns out, some two years ago, easyJet introduced a new money-maker – two sizes of carry-on. Regular, which is not much bigger than a handbag, and Large, which is just about every regular-sized pull-along case (like mine). As a result of having a Large Bag, I had to pay extra to upgrade to Speedy Boarding.

Such Speedy Boarding gave you allowance for a Large Carry-on and to pre-select your seat (if you book early enough), but had very little to do with accessing the plane quickly. It did, however, mean you could board the transfer bus early, only to be joined by everyone else, being squeezed to the back and then being last off the bus and on to the plane. The cost of the upgrade was nearly as much as the original ticket (especially as I would have to upgrade for the return too).

On board the plane, I noticed that there must be another class of travel on easyJet. Another money-extracting wheeze. A super- secret, off-menu option, known only to those with special handshakes. I am going to call it the “Reserved Row 1 Only Overhead Locker Boarding”. This, in addition to Plebian Boarding, Reserved Seat Boarding and Speedy Boarding, should ensure easyJet has more classes of travel than BA.

I flew easyJet earlier this year to Berlin and I was not stopped by the Large Bag police. Maybe it is an intermittent thing. Why do Budgets make life so complex? Moral of my tale – best to book Speedy Boarding from the start.

The outbound was delayed and the plane only half full (which irritated me given I had to pay a small fortune to the carry-on mafia). We landed under heavy, humid skies and I prayed that this was not to be over the weekend when my wonderful wife was to join me.

My hotel was east facing (beautiful sun rises on the lovely sunny days), overlooking the border between Albania and Greece in the far distance, and the cruise ship terminal near Corfu Town. The beach was hard sand and mosquito infested (I had more bites in one hour of sunbathing than in all my life). The room was comfortable, with a big balcony. Only issues were the tiny desk and no chair.

After some business calls in my room that first afternoon, I heard a cruise ship hoot and there followed the most terrific thunderstorm that went on through much of the night and became a glorious sunny morning (and for the next few days). First dinner was in the hotel, whereby the waiters had to ferry the plates in and out of the restaurant area under umbrellas – food and a live firework show.

First morning, I collected a hire car and started my explorations. It was a Hyundai i10, with the sweetest gear box, and perfect for Corfu’s steep and winding roads, and weird Greco-Roman roundabouts (a roundabout but broken into various illogical shards, each with its own stop line - Corfusion confusion). A veritable mountain goat, it had power, poise and nimbleness.

My wonderful wife and I tested it thoroughly over the weekend, with trips to meet Athena (the goddess of wine in the south) and Salami (the dextrous, salami-loving cat in the centre). Next day, we drove north to lunch at the Durrell’s house, sunbathe at Sidaris Beach, wonder at the Love Canal and to enjoy a sunset fish supper at Eucalyptus.

Despite the twisty roads, last minute hidden turns and a desperately confusing Madam Google (she was especially Corfused), my wonderful wife did a sterling job as navigator (including finding our client’s villa on oligarch hill, past the village with the saucy name of Fakamia) and we covered a lot of ground in a very short time.

We also visited Achilleion (built for an Austrian Princess and a homage to Achilles), Mon Repos (former summer home of the Greek Kings), the Old Fort (built by the Venetians), the Archaeological Museum (built by the Corfiots) and the teeny-weeny island home of the Holy Monastery of Panagia Vlacherna (with perhaps the smallest church, certainly I have ever seen, room for only 4x pews).

Corfu was surprisingly rich and varied in its history and scenery. It felt more like Italy than Greece. The landscapes were lush and green (even in October). Cyprus, which we know well, would be various shades of pale brown by now, frazzled after months of relentless summer sun. Corfu’s many fingered hills (huge Cypress trees) and valleys were of every verdant variety. We even drove through a forest of olive trees. Every second tree was an olive tree it seemed and yet here was a forest. Yes, a forest. The trees had been abandoned and left to their own devices. They were reaching for the sky in spectacular ways. My Mediterranean born and bred wonderful wife had never seen such tall olive trees.

The built environment was very Italian too. No Greek whites and blues here. The buildings were painted in pastel pinks, oranges and yellows. Many buildings were detailed in an Italian way, with the larger ones being fronted with colonnaded walkways (especially in Corfu Town). The food was delicious everywhere (not a Greek trait, in my humble experience).

The strong sense of Italy was reinforced one morning when I discovered our hotel carpark had been overrun with a flotilla of Ferraris. I did not know Corfu was so wealthy. On a more Greek note, one of the lovely Gest Relations ladies turned out to be the great granddaughter of Spiros (of Durrell’s taxi driver fame).

Did you know?

• Corfu is the only part of Greece never to have been occupied by the Ottoman Empire.
• It was ruled by Venice for centuries, then protected by the British until handover to Greece when it became a nation state in 1864.
• Britain’s light touch influences on the island are limited in Greece’s only cricket pitch (close to the Old Fort) and the new constructions within the Old Fort (barracks, now a music academy, and hospital, now derelict).
• Birthplace of Prince Philip, of QEII fame (although there was no ‘X’ to mark the spot in Mon Repos, which was a shame).
• As it is in the very northeast corner of the nation, the sun rises and sets much later than expected – the stop for Helios on his circum-navigation of the Greek world.

In essence, Corfu takes the best of Italy and Greece, with a soupcon of England, and is very much its own place. Quite unique in Greece.

My only complaint was the constant buzz of mosquitoes throughout the island (everywhere I went, people were applying repellent or bite creams), but most notably at our hotel. Nearby bodies of stagnant water were clearly the source of the local plague and I did not see any spraying going on. As a result, I had bites all over, including, for the first time, many on my bald pate. I returned to the UK looking like a Great Spotted Belisha Beacon. Definitely not in the brochure.