Corfu: 13th to 16th

Hey everyone. It seems like a long time since we have last written, but its only been a coupe days. We have access finally, so we thought that we would fill you in on the past couple of days. But first - thanks for all the comments guys, they have been great. Also, a Happy Father's Day to our Dads.

OK, so.... we last left off on our saga when we were spending our last night in athens. The next day we headed out to catch our bus to corfu. So the website said that there was a 10am bus that left from terminal a. So we leave in enough time, with public transit, you alway have to leave time for delays you know. But we get to terminal a with one hour of lee way. We line up behind an IRATE greek woman - which immediately made us think - uhhh ohhh, there must be something wrong with the bus. Indeed, by the time the security was called for the woman in front of us we had found out that the bus we wanted to take was full. But instead of freaking out, Jan and I calmly assessed the situation - no really, we did. I was very proud of us in retrospect. We just went over to the Ignomensia booth (Ignomensia is the town on the main land that is just across from Corfu and from which you can catch a ferry over to Corfu from). So that is what we did. We took the 7 and a half hour bus to Ignomensia, (along the way we experienced how greeks turn single lane highways into 3 lane highways. They managed this by driving on the large burms, and using the double line as the passing lane for both directions of traffic. Thus when one passed you did not have to worry about the oncoming traffic unless of course some one else was passing which we did see) and then bought tickets for the 6pm ferry to Corfu. The ferry was an hour and a half. While we were waiting for the ferry, Jan called the hostel so that we could get picked up. When we arrived at the port in Corfu there was just chaos. All the cars and people were let off at the same time, creating a sea of people. After wandering looking for the bus for sunrock (our hostel) we stood waiting for them to find us. Eventually there was a guy that came up to us - the only ones in the sea of people that had huge backpacks on. We got into the van, and we were driven for about 20 minutes to the hostel. It is always an experience being on Greek roads, I think that it is just an experience being in Europe in general and being driven around. You feel terrified, but grateful that a local is driving and you don't have to. When we got there, we found the hostel situated on a perch overlooking this gorgeous ocean view. The sun was setting and it was just gorgeous. However, after we turned around from the view to take a look at the hostel, we found a building that had seen better days. The parts that they were still using were in good repair, but you got the feeling that what we were seeing were shadows of it's former glory. Indeed, later on we saw pictures from the 80's/90's on an old brochures and the place used to be in much better condition. While we were standing there, we were told to take a seat on the outdoor patio. It was only after everyone had dinner that we were finally able to get our room and put our bags away. Oh, and dinner? Yeah everyone in the hostel had to eat together at this big communal table. Dinner (served at 10pm each night) was free - but the place had a distinctly communist feel.... LOL. Everyone was friendly, and dinner was tasty (hunger really is the best spice). After dinner Jan and I were pretty tired, so we called it a night.

The next morning, we enjoyed our free breakfast (we saved a bunch staying here because both meals were included), and then planned what we should do for the day. We realized that we should call the ferry for times etc. and book our seats. Well, lets just say that started a whole morning of planning and figuring things out. It became a hastle because we were told that we were not able to book tickets without a validated Eurorail pass. This was an issue. So we were told that we should go to the office - on the main land - and validate and book our tickets there. We were bit pleased with this information, seeing as we were just on the mainland and could have taken care of the issue while waiting for our other ferry. But alittle bit disgruntled we made plans to go the next day because we were not able to get a ride into town. So, satisfied that we had a plan we spent the rest of the day at the beach. That night we enjoyed a bottle of wine, and several friendly but competitive games of chess to pass the time until our late dinner.

The morning of the 15 we headed into town to execute our plans (We were heading into Ignomentsia to validate our passes and buy tickets for the ferry going to Bari on the 17th). At the ticket booth where we were to purchase our ferry tickets to Igomentsia. We told the woman there our plan, we bought tickets to Igomentsia. But then she told us that you can just show up and get your pass validated upon arrival, however it still had to be at the mainland port of Igomentsia. This wasn't a problem, because there was a ferry leaving from Ignomentsia the night of the 17th, and she said we would be able to use the tickets we just bought to get over to the mainland, validate and buy our tickets at the same time, before the ferry to Bari, Italy. With this new information we changed our plans and decided not to go to Igoumentsia and instead see the old town of Corfu. Corfu like Nafplio has a large Venetian influence. The whole old town was very Italian along with two massive Venetian fortresses overlooking the town. One of which was called the new fortress.... it didn't look new to us, but after visiting the "old" fortress we understood why. The old fortress dates back to the 7th century during Byzantium rule. Unfortunately it was hard to distinguish which battlements came from which period because after the Venetians had upgraded and expanded the old castle, the British came during WW2. Though their stay was brief they also made a lot of additions making it quite a hodge podge collections of battlements. There was also a Byzantine Museum in one part of the fortress, where we saw frescoes and tile works from the 7th century, and there was an amazing 13th century book of gospels - intact!!! But the best artifact there was one specific piece of tile work. Guess what? It had pigeons mating on it!!! Yeah, we weren't the only ones fascinated by their courtship ritual.

After the morning spent looking at palisades we took the city bus back to the town just above our hostel. After getting off of the bus, where we spent the afternoon once again relaxing in the sun. We enjoyed our last night with another bottle of wine and more friendly games of chess. The sun set - brilliant colors of reds, pinks, and oranges over the clear blue ocean - it was a wonderful and relaxing way to end the day. Then we had dinner at 10pm, finished our wine, and decided to try and write our blog. Yeah, the one computer they have doesn't work all that well up on mount nowhere. So halfway through - the screen goes black. Argh. So, even though we lost everything we wrote, we still had to pay for the time we were on the computer. Argh. After that, we called it a night.

This morning the "free ride" into town wouldn't take us closer to our ferry time. So we are currently at an internet cafe in Corfu Town passing some time because it is now noon here, and our ferry doesn't leave from Ignomentsia until midnight. So sometime we will be heading over there to take care of our tickets, but we have a whole day to pass - with our giant backpacks in tow...which means we can't really go hike up to any other old fortress..... But, we are safe and sound, and excited to be going to Italy. Greece is good, but it's time for the next leg of the journey. We'll let you know how everything is going when were are in Italy.

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