the next morning was another rainy one, but the skies cleared up on the way into corfu town. where kavos is a little village cramped by brits in the summer and left desolate in the off-season, corfu bustles year round.
corfu is a city that shows its origins openly; centuries of italian influence give the streets and buildings a distinctly venician feel, and a brief british occupation left a victorian bandstand in the main square. the city is set between two fortresses, known simply as the new fortress (atop the hill to the west) and the old fortress (on the easternmost horn, and pictured below).
the day was spent wandering the city, peeking into shops and sitting by the sea.
after missing a bus, giving us slightly more time than we had planned, we ate dinner in town: a really nice meze, overlooking a little alleyway. a traditional greek band wandered by to serenade us as the sun set over the city.
the next morning, we were back to corfu town–this time to see the achilleion palace, once the summer home of empress sissi of austria, now a museum centred on her life and the works of homer, on whose ideals sissi had had the palace built.
words cannot do the achilleion justice, so pictures will have to do:
another wander around the city and it was back to kavos for food and sleep–the plane back into the UK was the next morning.
ultimately, corfu was a brilliant taster of the sort of place greece was and everything that could be seen and experienced. it wasn’t a long stay, but has fulfilled me for now–though i know i’ll be itching to return soon! so much world to see, and so little time.
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