Corfu

Pictures do not do justice!

Coming into Corfu must be one of the most brilliantly beautiful sights to see from a boat.

The "new" Venetian fortress

Smooth blue ocean with the island of Corfu on the left side and the mainland of Greece and Albania on the right side. Green forests and sturdy looking Venetian citadels. A cheerful looking town perched between two massive forts with brightly coloured houses spilling bougainvillea and geraniums down their sides. Sheltered bays on one side of the island and pristine beaches on the other. Could you ask for anything more in a holiday destination?
And sailboats a plenty sail these waters with merry makers from all nationality types. Just as ships and sailors have been travelling through here since the dawn of human history.

I've never been here, and it's been thirty years since Randy was here, so this is new territory for the family. We are only stopping for a few hours, but it's the perfect place to have an afternoon stroll, eat some food and say goodbye to classical Greece and prepare for medieval history. Although it seems like we did that yesterday when we left Athens as Corfu is distinctly Venetian!

walking through the old streets

The Venetians ruled the Adriatic for hundreds of years and Corfu was one of their beautiful cities that sprang up along the coastline. The fortresses are Venetian, as is the layout of the town, but Corfu does have a history that spills back to ancient times. This was the island that Poseidon brought his new bride, Kerkyra, the daughter of a river god, and as a wedding present named the island after her. The beautiful nymph Kerkyra (which became Corfu over the millennium) left her name as Poseidon's gift of immortality to their love.

Checking out some of the old Venetian canons

And now it's our turn for a taste of Nymphs, Venetian forts and gyros if I'm lucky.

Inside the walls of the old fort

Midway through the day we disembark in the main town of Corfu, also named Corfu. It's a good thirty minute walk from where we are docked up into the UNESCO heritage old town. It's not hard to navigate through the old streets, just follow the simple rule of keeping the top of the (new) Venetian fortress in line of sight. Then once you pass the "new fortress" (started in the late 1500's) you wind your way through the streets toward the "old fortress"(built after the town was destroyed in the late 6th century AD).... Both are imposing structures and the town grew up between the two, safe from pirate attack and worse. The streets are winding and somewhat torturous, especially for pushing a stroller in, the first and last time I would use it on the trip! Poor Juliet, she was humiliated that I pushed her around all day in it. But now I know that my baby is no longer a baby and can hike with the best of us, it's time to leave it behind. Gee, where does the time go?

yum, yum, Gyros!

After suitable meandering through the town we end up at the old fortress and cross over onto the little island that it sits on. The kids are all on lookout for Venetian Lions, something that we have prepped them for. The Lion was the symbol of Venice and depending on what the circumstances were when the Lion was erected the meaning would be different. But, more to come on that subject when we reach Venice itself. Needless to say we identified quite a few, statues and plaques on the walls to identify the Venetian buildings.

The fortress hosts a number of ancient cannons and Liam would probably still be there today inspecting the mechanisms that made them work if the girls hadn't unanimously bullied him out of the fort and into the main town for lunch.

It's our last chance for Gyros! So of course we stop for the most extravagant helpings of gyros (and coffee for me) before walking back to the ship, or should I say waddling after all that food?

We leave Corfu after such a short amount of time, but as Randall and I stand on deck watching us depart the Ionian waters, we make a promise to return, when we have the time to do justice to this destination, and get to know it a bit better.

As the sun starts to sink we watch the shoreline of the mainland go by. Somewhere along the shore is the border between Greece and Albania. What a difficult time this shoreline has had in the past hundred years. What would it have been like for the Albanians living in abject poverty to watch the sun set behind Corfu with its abundance of Western holiday makers? Or was it really as simple as they hopped on a boat and got work as cabana boys without need of a Greek passport. I am ignorant of the ways of the Eastern block in this region and its hard to know the truth of those times with all the cold war propaganda from both sides. But when you are in this area and you see how close it all it, you would be blind not to sit back and wonder just a little bit what makes people so closely related geographically have such different fates.

And speaking of fates, Croatia is next, another brief stopover, but a taste of this world none the less....

One last Greek sunset

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

G.K.Chesterson

Santorini and Mykonos - Gems of the Greek Islands

Santorini and Mykonos

hiking up the donkey road in Santorini

Ahhh, beautiful Greece. There is a special color for the water in Greece. Azure doesn’t cut it. Turquoise, cobalt, sapphire, cerulean…. No, the best I can say is it is Greek water.

We are anchored in Santorini and getting ready to take a small boat ashore to this old volcanic island. Clara joins us today but Juliet begged us to stay onboard, so we are a family of five at the moment.

Santorini, the southernmost gem of the Cyclades island chain, awash in the Aegean Sea. Once a thriving Bronze Age port, a vital part of the Minoan civilization, the island literally blew apart in a cataclysmic volcanic eruption 3600 hundred years ago and is now merely a shell of an island with a huge sea caldera, big enough for our gigantic ship (and many others) to all anchor in. The eruption, one of the largest in earth’s history, ended not only the civilization on the island but also the entire Minoan civilization - gave rise to the legend of Atlantis.

Looking down from the top of Santorini into the Sea filled Caldera

Pretty exciting stuff, especially for this traveling family.

Again, as we don’t have much time we won’t be able to see the ruins of the town that survived or explore for the underwater ruins that are out there somewhere. (Atlantis, I’ve found it!) But we will climb to the top of the cliffs, see the main town, soak in a little island life and look down into the caldera proper.

gyros heaven

As the tourists line up for the funicular (like a quick cable car) and the rest queue to buy a donkey ride we decide to hoof it up the steep slope ourselves. We hike the mount all the time at home so no sweat, well, some sweat, we can make it. And so we hike up the something like 500+ steps  to the top of the caldera rim.
We are constantly being passed by donkeys, carrying scared looking tourists, clutching their Dior bags and point-and-shoot cameras. Apart from dodging the Donkey dung it felt good to get physical, especially for me after the few weeks of sickness I’ve had. And with every bend in the road the scene gets more and more magnificent.

The view from the top must be one of the best in the world. Fira town perches precariously to the top of the volcanic rim. It has been photographed something like a billion times, and everyone has seen the quintessential white houses looking down onto the blue water. But you know what? It deserves to be photographed like mad and celebrated. It’s a truly amazingly beautiful place!

A fishy pedicure!

So we take our photographs and spend time pointing out the caldera to the kids - how we are standing on the rim of the volcano that exploded so many years ago, and how there is a new island rising in the middle of the water, someday to blow up again – but hopefully not for another 10,000 years or so!

Who needs laughter yoga?

Not far into the town we ran across a foot spa store that is entirely unique to us. I must try this out! There are rows of plush seats with water tanks to put your feet in. The water tanks look like aquariums, because, well, they are aquariums. Each foot bath has a hundred little cleaner fish and when you stick your feet inside they come and eagerly start nibbling at your toes, eating away any dead skin and fungus. It is supposed to be relaxing, but being ticklish, I nearly made myself sick laughing then entire 20 minutes. Each time I would subdue the giggles another little wiggly body would push between my toes and start munching away, and I would break out into another fit of laughter. Who needs laughter yoga when you can laugh silly and get the dead skin taken off your feet?

finally on a donkey

The kids thought I was mad, but all had a go at getting their feet cleaned as well. What a fun experience, and my feet really were smoother when I was done!

The best part was listening to our budding entrepreneurs deciding on their business plan of importing the fish to Mount Maunganui and setting up their own fish foot cleaning business. Liana deemed Clara suitable for charming the customers in, while Liam was relegated to cleaning the fish tanks. Who knows, they may make their fortunes in the fish pedicure market someday!

Fearless daddy leads the way

Fira, is a small town and soon we had exhausted the stores. So we settled for a gyros (just as drippy, slurpy, greasy and yummy as yesterday) and a bottle of water before heading to find some last views. Our limited time only allowed me to have a quick espresso before navigating our way to the top of the trailhead that leads down to the marina 500 meters below.

The kids, who had wanted so badly to ride a donkey on the way up, got their wish on the way down. After some serious haggling the Greek man saddled up two donkeys, hoisted the kids up, handed the reigns over to Randall and walked away. We were on our own, so how to make a tired donkey move? It was a bumpy laughter filled ride down, but we made it just in time for the last tender back to the ship before it steamed off to the second island for the day. Ah, what an experience.

MYKONOS

Arriving in Mykonos just after seven there was never any doubt in our minds that the kids were going to be left on the ship in the kids club while mummy and daddy went out on the town.

Oh to be so free. Just the two of us on a quaint, if tourist ridden, Greek island. The only hands we held were each other’s. The town is made for casual strolling in and the sights are laid back and low key. Mykonos doesn’t have any significant historical sights (at least not that we could see in the few hours that we were docked here) so we had full permission to relax and just be the silly tourists that we sometimes make fun of.

Working up our appetites with a stroll to some of the traditional Grecian windmills we had severe decision trauma choosing a restaurant, but when a table presented itself right on the water the decision became very easy. The view was stunning, the food amazing. The wine went down effortlessly and the company was perfect. Who knew it was so easy to hold a conversation when you are not constantly peppered with questions from the small inquisitive people that follow up everywhere?

walking through the streets of mykonos

A perfect evening to recharge our energies before the excitement and history of our next stop – Athens!!!

Ancient Olympics!

And we’re on the move again….

Looking back on Sorrento to say goodbye

It was a tearful goodbye from the kids when we said goodbye to our new friends at the Palazzo Montefusco.  They took such good care of us we felt like family, but it’s time to be moving again. By mini bus from Sorrento across Italy to Bari, on the Adriatic Sea where we pick up our next ship to tour Greece and the Adriatic.

Driving across Italy is a treat. Leaving Sorrento we pass the backs of the rocky mountains that make up the Sorrentine peninsula and pop out at Salerno, the southern end of the Amalfi coast, before heading east to make for Bari, the second largest city in the south of Italy. At first it’s a land of hill top villages and mountains, Liam gets to be on lookout for fortresses, but gradually the land turns into wheat fields and wind farms. After about three hours we get our first glimpse of the blue ocean and next thing we are winding through the industrial town of Bari to the docks where an enormous ship awaits.

We’ve booked on MSC lines for a quick highlight cruise that will give us a glimpse of Greece, Croatia and Venice. Kids travel free so it was a fairly economical way for us to get the flavour of this part of the world. I was all for staying on a Greek Island for a month and getting a full dose, but the budget had to stop somewhere!

So as we settle in on our Italian ship the rain clouds come and wash away some of the dust of this land and get us ready for our first view of Greece tomorrow morning.

OLYMPIA – home of the Olympics….

About midday we dock at Katakolon in the western part of Greece. It is a seaside town that is the gateway to the ancient city of Olympia – home to the first Olympic games.

Leaving Clara and Juliet on the ship we head out with just the big kids. Liana is practically vibrating with excitement. It’s finally getting to the part of the trip that she picked. Liam had input into Petra and Vatican City, while Liana was desperate to see Greece and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. She’s studied the Greek classics, can tell you most of the stories, and knows a great deal about ancient mythology so today was her first exciting foray into the land of Homer, Herodotus and Hercules.

The remains of the temple of Zeus

Instead of taking the overly priced tour we buy a ticket from the local bus. It takes us about 30 minutes to get to the hugely touristy destination of Olympia. I was here with my parents (and Cathy!) twenty or so years ago and it seemed quite off the tourist map back then, but with the recent Olympics and all the money that poured into the country from the added tourist revenue, it has been commercialised and fancied up. Large car parks for the buses and cafes and tourist shops are all in place.

We get our tickets and head into the well kept archaeological site. Liana squeals when she sees her first Greek text. It’s hard not to feel super excited when you are surrounded by antiquity. 

The first remains found here date back to the 10^th century BC and the first Olympic games were officially held in 776 BC, and were played continuously at this sight until the last Olympiad in 393 AD, after which the Christian emperor, Theodosius I put a ban on the ancient games, deeming them too pagan. And when the 2004 modern Olympic games were held in Greece the men’s and women’s shot put competition was held right here in the restored Olympic stadium. How amazing would that have been for those competitors!?

In the well laid out ruins that are the modern archaeological sight of Olympia there are many different time layers within the buildings. It was a bit of a pilgrimage sight for many people in the ancient worlds. In fact it was said that wars were put on hold so that competitors could travel to the games. They were sacred of Zeus and the ruins of the massive temple in his honor are still some of the most impressive of the sight. There are Roman ruins as well as Macedonian ruins, all put together with the Greek ruins. It's similar to any working sight that is continually improved upon. 

But no matter how much time you spend wandering around the ruined temples, ancient training halls, places of worship and places of feasting, every tourist ends up at the Olympic stadium.

Inside the ancient stadium

Not too many people can say that they’ve run in the Olympic games but here you can pass through the archway that ancient competitors would have strode through and run in the old stadium. Even us women who would have been forbidden entrance to the ancient games. After overcoming his horror upon hearing that all competitors ran in the nude, Liam was keen to become an olympic athlete and we caught him on video racing in his first Olympics, which he did with his usual grace and comedy. That's my boy. 

There were also other tourists and a few Greek school groups who were doing the same thing. How amazing would that be to go to school, learn your history and then walk out on your own doorstep and be able to touch and feel the spirit of your ancestors and walk (or run) in their footsteps. It makes you think that you’d have a bit more appreciation for the timelessness of history. Or maybe not, and I’m merely looking at it through my own filter of experiences.

All in all, we only had a few hours to introduce the kids to Olympia, but it was enough. They got the spirit of the ancient Olympics and feel the difference of this place over the other cultures we’ve visited so far. We are only a few hundred miles from Italy but the feeling of the land and culture is as different as Oman was from Italy. A good lesson that geography does not necessarily dictate the spirit of the land.

After returning to Katakolon we had a bit of time before ship was due to leave so we spent the time doing a bit of wandering and shopping in the touristy shops. I bought some cute dresses for the girls and some aspirin to help with the lingering aches from my earlier illness. Randall and the kids added to his growing dagger and sword collection. And finally we pass a gyros shop. Stopping in our tracks it’s time for the kids to discover true gyros. Sauce dripping, steaming, onion filled gyros. Oh yum. Hot fresh pita bread filled with greasy meat, fries, onions, tomatoes and tziziki sauce it’s an instant hit and we gorge our way back to the ship. For me the perfect way to end our afternoon. 

A brief stop here on the western Peloponnese and it’s back on the road south to more Greece, blue seas, gyros and sunshine.

But not before we have a night out at the club on the ship so our girls can tear up the dance floor....