Tutto è Greco a me

On a much lighter note, last week I was in Greece!!

I'm going to borrow a lot of Liz's photos (she decided "Eli," although more Italian, wasn't for her) since they're much better than mine.

We arrived at the island of Corfu via ferry.  We met a big Italian family on the boat who were from Lecce and on their way to a wedding.  One of them was a UniBo alumnus and was really excited that we were attending his old school.  Apparently, he's also a master of traditional Greek dance, and he gave us a small demonstration.  He invited us to one of the pre-wedding parties, where we could all learn the dance too, but then he never called :(.  While we talked, other members of the family kept taking pictures of us, so we took some of them.  We all pretended it wasn't awkward.  It was probably easier for them, since there's no direct translation in Italian for "awkward."

I believe that's Albania.

When we arrived, we were greeted by our travel agent, Anna, who's lived in Corfu for her entire life, except for one year when--small world--she lived with a host family about 5 minutes away from Buffalo, where Sarah lives.  She gave us lots of helpful advice (for example: if you see forest fires, go in the other direction) and then dropped us off at our first hotel.  Feeling a bit anxious, we calmed our nerves with a delicious Greek dinner.  We all shared tzatziki (yogurt sauce, although with normal restaurant bread instead of pita) and I had a plate of roasted vegetables.  Our waiter brought us all red wine "from the house" and we weren't sure if he meant house wine or free wine until we saw the check (it was free).  He also brought us ouzo, the traditional after-dinner spirit, to "help with digestion."  It tasted like black licorice, and I can't say it was the best thing I've ever tasted, but it also was from the house, so no complaints here.

The next morning, after a hotel breakfast, Anna's husband Kristos picked us up and brought us to the start of where we'd be hiking.  He also took a lot of our stuff to hold onto for us, since we had realized how hard it would be to carry everything around all day.  Days later, we would realize how hard it would be to wear the same smelly sweater all day, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.  Anyway, he drove us to a road that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, pointed out the yellow marks that we'd be following, along with a more detailed description of the trail that we'd printed out, and left us there.  We were off!

Every once in a while, there'd be a helpful sign

But they weren't always easy to spot...

After about five minutes, we were already lost.  Then we figured out where we'd gone wrong, backtracked, made some more progress and...got lost again.  This is pretty much how it went for the next three days.  Hilary, who wrote the guide, didn't quite see things the same way we did.  Also, those helpful yellow marks had a tendency to disappear just when we needed them the most.  Since we had nothing but time, however, the situation was never too desperate. 

We would always be ridiculously excited to find out we were going the right way.

Here are some of the things that we saw our first day on the road, in no particular order:

A donkey!

Scenic views!

Olive groves!

The Folkloric Museum!

That fun-looking stool to the left was used for giving birth.

A bridge!

Charming villages!

We stopped for lunch in a small village where we shared more tzatziki and each had our own Greek salad.  They were so fresh and delicious, and also huge, and none of us were able to finish.

By the end of the day, it had started to rain a bit, but we were hot and sweaty so we didn't mind it much.  When we finally got to the night's lodging, a small tavern with rooms upstairs, we were greeted warmly by the proprietor and shown to our room, where we changed into clean, dry clothes. This was the first and last time we'd be able to do this, but at the time we didn't know to savor the moment.  Later, we'd look back on it fondly.  For dinner, we shared red wine and fried zucchini, and I had vegetarian Moussaka.  No ouzo on the house this time, but we were brought a free plate of fresh watermelon.  It was raining pretty hard by this point, so we found a bar with some good music playing and camped out there for a bit before bed. 

The next morning, we woke up to a huge rainstorm.  Reluctantly, we dressed warmly and headed downstairs for breakfast.  This was definitely the best of the four that we had at our different hotels--the waitress brought us coffee, juice, omelettes, toast with jam, croissants, and slices of meat and cheese. Things got even better when Kristos showed up to inform us that the weather was too dangerous for hiking, and that instead he'd be driving us to our next hotel.  Since we didn't want to sit around there all day, we asked him to bring us to the main town, Kerkyra, and he was happy to do so.  He even stopped at the bus station to show us how to get back at the end of the day.  We were really happy to have him helping us.

Kerkyra was very touristy, but a good place to spend a rainy day.  We walked around, visited a fortress, and did some light shopping.  Apparently, Corfu is a hot destination for Germans.

The view from the fortress.

Unfortunately, the Germans were also here during World War II.

Around 4, we took a bus to the town we were staying in, and it took us about an hour to walk from the bus stop to our hotel, so all in all we still had a pretty active day.  Dinner feature spinach pies, wine, and more tzatziki, with more after-dinner drinks on the house.  Greek hospitality is truly something to be admired. 

The next morning, we woke up to a Corfu miracle!  The sun was shining and it was a perfect day to get back on the trail.  This time, there was a lot more off-roading-we climbed a mountain, fought our way through thick undergrowth, and more!  Lunch (more tzatziki and Greek salad) was particularly rewarding, as the nice Greek lady who served us kept telling us how proud she was of us. We also got to stop and see Bella Vista, "The Best View in Europe."  It almost made up for the fact that we didn't end up hiking the day before, meaning that we didn't get to pass "The Most Beautiful Beach in Europe (now taken over by nudists)."

Blue skies!

Belle Viste!

Old Buildings!

We were actually going the wrong way here, but it was a nice detour.

Don't worry, this didn't happen!

Our hike ended with a footpath that lead down a cliff to a beach resort.

Our last dinner wasn't our favorite, even with more ouzo on the house--I ordered baked feta and then spent the rest of the meal trying to recover from how spicy it was. Afterwards, we met some Albanians who were dancing to traditional Greek music.  We joined in, and things got even more like how we'd imagined them to be when the music switched over to Abba.  It was a pretty great day. 

Kristos picked us up the next morning and brought us to the ferry port.  We took a short ferry to the mainland, and then a 16-hour, overnight boat back to Italy.  We thought it would be fun and romantic to buy deck seats, which were also the cheapest.  We ended up sleeping in a stairwell so....next time we'll at least spring for seats. 

We docked in Ancona, rushed to the train station, and two hours later arrived in Bologna.  Long story short, Greece is amazing, and everyone should go.