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A quiet first day at Corfu


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Saturday 06 June, a quiet first day at Corfu

The beach at VitaladesToday we make a quiet start. Yesterday afternoon we have already found a shop for some groceries in the neighborhood and we have breakfast on our balcony. Then we first walk to the beach where we find a spot on a terrace so that we have a view over the sea. This will be our favourite restaurant for the coming week where we take a seat in the morning or in the evening or even twice a day. Nothing more tasty than starting a holiday as relaxed as this.
We have not yet read a lot about Corfu so we start doing that now, with a cup of coffee and fresh orange juice. I am still a bit confused about the spelling of Greek placenames: because Greek has a different alphabet, the sounds are converted into the Latin alphabet. But even then I do not know what the official name of Korfou is: Kerkyra is in Greek the name for the island and also for the capital. In Dutch and English texts you will find Corfu, Korfu, Corfoe, Korfoe and Korfou. We are going to call the island Corfu and the capital Kerkyra to avoid confusion.
Corfu seems to be the greenest island in Greece, especially because there is a lot of rain in the winter. The Ionian islands only became part of modern Greece in 1864, before it were the Venetians, the French, Russians and English who had much influence in this area.
The beach of Vitalades Wanderer hut on the beachWe still have a lot to discover on this island and about it, but we start with a walk on the beach at our village. It is a fairly large beach and there are only a few tourists. We are of course quite early in the season, deliberately so to avoid the crowds.
We have left the swimsuits in our room, but it is not far away so we pick them up and go sunbathing and swimmingthe rest of the morning. The seawater is not very warm but agreeably nice.
Canal in Lefkimmi Walking through LefkimmiWe then make a first trip through the south of the island and we are amazed by the bad roads. You would expect that the local administrators would care better for them with so tourists that their economy is depending upon. Apparently there is no money for repairs and probably also not for the signage and we are glad that we have taken our navigation with us because the signs here do not make us any wiser when we want to go somewhere. We come through a lot of very touristc places but Lefkimmi is a bit better, probably too boring for most.
Rainbow in VitaladesIn the afternoon we have time to go for another hour to the beach and then we eat something in the restaurant along the sea.
At the end of the afternoon it gets a bit cooler and when we go back to our apartment, from where we see a beautiful rainbow. So it is raining somewhere! Fortunately not here, we did not come here for rain.
We have had a nice quiet day, and still almost 4 weeks to go.

 


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