Oct 30th - Nov 4th
On the morning of the 30th we left Ionnina and caught an early bus to Igoministera, which is a city on the coast of Greece, we arrived just in time to catch the Ferry over to the Island of Corfu. You can see the name of the town (Igoministera ) in Greek on the bus!
It was about 1.5 hour journey on the ferry, and although it started to rain about half way across, it was a calm journey. Kind of grey out though, so the ocean didn't really look very pretty. The ferry had a cover over the outside seating, which leaked like mad when it started to rain!!
As we arrived you could see the old fortress of Corfu (or Kerkyra as it is called in Greek) rising up in front of us.
It has been a very quiet few days on the Island of Corfu. Although this Island is known for it beautiful beaches, we have hit the beginning of rainy season and it has rained almost every day.
I have to say we have been very lucky on our trip and hardy had any rain days at all this whole summer, but Corfu is sure making up for it.
We watched as everyone at home in Sudbury got a big dump of snow on Halloween. It was kinda sad because Greece doesn't celebrate Halloween and it is my brothers' birthday. But we made our own fun anyway. We found the only pumpkin in the store and carved it and we got a whole bunch of candy and had a great time!
My brothers have been wanting to try bowling for a long time and we didn't get to try it out on the cruise boat - so we decided to take them bowling for their birthday.
They had a great time! They had a shoot for the big bowling balls to help the little kids, because it is really hard to bowl fast enough for them. I was able to bowl with out it! We had a great time and played two games!
My mom and I made a triple layer ice cream cake for the boys . We took strawberry ice cream and put it in the first layer, white on the second and chocolate on the third. then we poured chocolate sauce over the top! We love it so much!! it was such fun to make we love making. We froze it was frozen. Then it was so frozen that we had to thaw it in the sun, then it was almost liquid. So we just lived with it. We spreed it around on the cake. It leaked everywhere. We had a BIG mess to clean up. it leaked in the freezer.
Liam and Brendan loved it! It was so big it has taken us 4 days to eat it!!
The rest of our time in Corfu has been spent talking little trips in to the main city of Corfu and walking around the town and hiding out in our apartment from the rain!!
The main city of Corfu is a UNESCO site. It is a walled city and still has most of the old city fortifications still in place. This city has been involved in many famous wars and was taken over and defended my many different empires. It was a part of the Pelopennesian wars of ancient Greece, the Romans used the city, it was the site of fights against the Ottomans and the Turks, the walls were built by the Venetians, and then after Napolean was defeated the British took over ruling Corfu. Finally, during WW2 the Italians occupied Corfu and it was heavily bombed during the second world war.
Here are some pictures of our walks around the old town. Above you can see the old fortress.
Most of the old town of Corfu is walking streets and we took our time weaving through all of the old streets, Unfortunately most of the original buildings were severely damaged during the bombing of Corfu in WW2, but the basic city plan and a few buildings still stand.
In these pictures you can see the Palace of St. Micheal and St. George. It was built and used as the seat of the British Commissioner of Corfu and the Ioninan Islands. After the Union of Greece in 1864 it was the Royal residence. In the close up of the pillars you can still see the evidence of bullets from the Greek Civil war from 1946-1949.
The Cannon at the top was made in 1685 (I've been learned to figure out the dates in Roman Numerals!) That Cannon was famous for being involved in the 6th Ottoman-Venetian war. Also known as the Morean War. The Ottomans tried many times to take over Corfu, but the Venetians fought them off every time.
We really enjoyed our time in Corfu, it was too bad that the weather was so miserable, because it is known for its beautiful beaches. But that just means, I may have to come back someday and head out for a swim!
Talk to you soon
Tia and Mari
Comments