The Summer Amy: Our time in Corfu Town

Corfu is an absolute mecca for history buffs and trinket buying tourists. This is not for me, or Sal for that matter and certainly not for the kids. Getting under the skin of a place is what we like to do and that would be difficult in a place like this in the few days we planned to stay. But don’t be put off.

Corfu is beautiful with well-preserved timeless buildings, cobbled streets and piazzas. Cafés, bars and tavernas abound and Corfu central is small enough to cover in a couple of days.

In order to make it at least tolerable for the kids, we allowed them to use their bikes! Amazing how well they are riding. Picture narrow, sometimes steep cobbled streets full of ambling tourists and street vendors. They just seemed to wind their way through it all without really annoying anyone. We did get asked not to allow them to ride among the tables at this outdoor restaurant.

One thing I have found in Greece is you just have to get used to a few things…

- Never put toilet paper down the toilet. It goes in the bin next to the toilet…

After unblocking twice on the boat, this now applies to the boat too and the weird thing is that it doesn’t smell. Seriously!

- Remember, everything opens between 9:30 and 10:00am. Closes at 2:00 (except tavernas and bars. Thank St Stephanos or whoever you want to thank for that one) then reopens at 6:00 and we rarely eat dinner before 10:00pm.

So breakfast at 10:00am, lunch with house wine at 2:00ish and dinner at 10:30pm with copious amounts of house wine, or bottled if we feel we achieved something special, like moored successfully without making dicks of ourselves that day.

- Everybody, but everybody smokes! tourists included, everywhere and anywhere. We wake in the morning and it feels as if we have been smoking. Australia is at least 30 years ahead on this one.

- Just when you really need something important there is either a strike or a public holiday and everything is closed “didn’t you know?”

One such important shopping day. Important because madam wants new mirrors. The mirrors in the bathrooms are corroded around the edges and I have to agree, they look dated compared to the rest of this immaculate ship. So Will and I take a 6km ride to a place we were directed to the previous day. The director naturally failed to tell us of the public holiday...

- Nearly all the Greek people I have dealt with, be it to get things done on the boat, ordering food or where our kids are concerned, have been so friendly, hospitable and above all, honest. I don't know why I would have thought otherwise, but probably because the only place I've been rolled in my many years of travel has been Athens... Twice!

- In Greece, there are Greek restaurants… that’s it!

This is what Will and I encountered on or way home. A full on Band Off! there would have been 10 such ooompapa bands marching around the cobbled streets immaculately dressed in 30 degrees..

This is the large Piazza surrounding a cricket pitch just south of our mooring.

Each band was closely followed by these ladies. Do you think we could gain any insight into what was actually happening? Only that it was Saint Somebody or Other Day..

Ladies in traditional dress - Duh Greg! Well that's all I can tell you ok?

By the way, we did discover where the expression 'OK' comes from. It is an acronym of Ola Kala which in Greek means everything is alright.

Some shots from inside the Fort area. Mainly stuff built by the British during a brief period in the 1830's when Corfu was under British administration. Na, didn't know that either...