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Published: September 9th 2006
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Corfu - Playtime at The Pink Palace
Leaving Rome, we were forced to backtrack through Bari to Brindisi, Italy before catching a ferry to Corfu Island, Greece. In Brindisi, we stayed the night in a little apartment/hotel complex near the port for convenience. In the morning when we enquired about buses or a taxi, the family that ran the complex was nice enough to offer us a ride to the ferry. We arrived at 11:00 AM giving ourselves our standard two hour leeway for our 1:00 departure. We had prepaid for our tickets online, so all we had to do was check in. It was a quiet little ferry port, reminding me of the ferry dock on the south end of Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound where I grew up.
We inquired about check-in at one of the many windows along the wooden shacks that served as ferry company offices. The first window told us that there was no ferry going to Corfu that morning, not until 5:00 PM. Okay, we thought. This may just be a language barrier problem. We tried another window and were told that there were no ferries that left for Corfu. How could
The port of Corfu Town taken from our hotel room.
It was to get very hot again soon, so this weather was kind of fun. this be, we wondered? Now, panic started to set in as we tried to figure out where we went wrong. We went to a third window and tried again. This time, we were told that we were at the wrong port and that our ferry left from another port on the other side of Brindisi. So… there we stood; Packs loaded on our back, clock ticking, and no idea where this other port was or how to get there in a hurry. We stepped up our search for information and accosted several security guards until we found one that spoke English well enough to direct us to a free shuttle that ran between the two ports. This was wonderful information, but he couldn’t tell us when the shuttle would be back and when it would leave again because this was a casual operation and it came and went at its leisure. About 15 sweaty minutes later, up pulled the little van and we jumped on in relief. As we drove across town, glancing at our watches every few seconds, I mentioned to Bryan that I remembered my Dad always getting us to the airport hours earlier than I thought we
The beach of Agios
The Pink Palace sits on the hill in the distance. should arrive and when we’d complain about waiting around for so long, he tell us “You never know when you might have a flat tire“. I had picked up this little ‘Type A’ habit somewhere along the way, in spite of myself, and I said a little thank you to Dad. We pulled in to the port, the correct port this time, at about 12:15 to a pouring rain but also, to our relief, with plenty of time to catch the boat. This is how our little dream of a Greek island get-away began.
Upon our arrival to the port of Corfu Town, we did the standard walk around with our packs and settled on a hotel overlooking the ships coming and going. The weather was still stormy but we ventured out to find an internet café to search for cheaper accommodations. Our hope was to rent a beach house and finally enjoy some sun and sand away from the crowds. Because of the approaching holiday of on Aug. 15th of the ascension of the Mother Mary to heaven (sorry Dad, I can’t remember the name of this day, but in my defense, I did know what the holiday
Our favorite place to watch the sunset.
The old man that runs this little bar is laying in his bed behind us with this wife at his side, both watching TV. was), the whole of Italy and Greece seemed to have booked all the rooms for their vacation time. We were fortunate to find space at a hostel on the other side of the island, Agios Gordis, called The Pink Palace and booked 7 nights online. The website described a big pink bus provided by the hostel so we didn‘t have to worry about transportation.
The next morning we walked up and down the docks in search of the big pink bus. Sure enough about an hour later we saw it pull in and the race was on for us to get down the road with our packs before it pulled out again. Out of breath and hot, we chased down the bus to where it had stopped and quickly boarded only to discover it would sit there for another hour waiting for possible passengers coming off the next ferry. We waited the required hour but it became apparent that no passengers on the ferry would be heading to the Pink Palace, so a gypsy looking woman that did PR work for the hostel suggested we ride in her little beat-up Fiat and save the big bus a trip. She
pushed old newspapers, water bottles, and other personal items out of the way as we crammed our packs into the trunk and back seat and jumped in. The gypsy woman tried to answer all of our questions about the island and told us how well known The Pink Palace is among college age kids looking for a place to party. Sure enough, the hostel was a huge sprawling array of white and pink buildings that stood on the cliffs above a long sandy beach filled with hundreds of 17 - 23 year olds. Check-in began with a ritual shot of pink Ouzo even though it was only 11 AM in the morning. We consoled ourselves with the thought that we were fortunate to have found a room at this time of year and that the price was right with breakfast and dinner included. The receptionist must have taken pity on the old couple and to our delight we found that our room was in a smaller complex way down the beach from the other buildings and removed from the noise of the all-night parties. Our balcony overlooked the water and we could easily hear the waves crashing on the shore.
The only drawback was that the room did not have air conditioning, which would have been fine, but for the profuse amount of mosquitoes that fed upon us as when we left the windows and doors open.
The next 7 days blended together beginning with a breakfast at 8:00 AM, swimming, snorkeling, sunbathing, and body surfing, a beer at a local bar where we would visit with a Canadian, Jillian, and the bartender, Siros, dinner at 8:30 PM, reading, and fitful sleep as the mosquitoes found fresh skin from which to drain their meals.
Occasionally, we would have some time to kill before dinner and we would make our way down to the little bar below our building that sat on the a little jetty over the water. It was as run down as the rest of the buildings but the setting couldn’t be beat as we watched the sunset and the waves crash against the rocks underneath. The bar was run by a very old man and his wife. The old man had a half reclining bed and TV set up next to the bar and his wife, half hunched over with a scarf and a cane, would walk over and sit next to his bed by the bar to visit with him in the evenings. Bryan and I and maybe a college student or two would usually be the only ones there and we hated to get him off his bed to get us a bottle of wine but he seemed excited to show us the new wines he had purchased. The he’d hand our selection to Bryan to open, as the bottle opener seemed a bit much for him, and a couple of plastic cups, and we were set for our sunset wait for dinner.
Dinners were probably the most stressful part of a relaxed day, as all the residence ate together in a large banquet hall and we were seated in groups of eight. The room sat about 400 people at a time and filled up quickly. We were forced to make conversation each night with a different set of peach-fuzzed young men or girls made up for the night of dancing that was to follow. Some evenings were easier than others and we found ourselves enjoying the company, but most of the time, we felt somewhat out of place.
We had found most of what we were looking for in a beach side retreat from life, but not quite. The Pink Palace offered a deal at 49 euros per person for an overnight ride on the big pink bus to Athens. It was time to move on.
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Sam and Phyllis
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Shirley Valentine
I guess this is as close as you could get to the movie, Shirley Valentine.