Corfu was the first of our three Greek island ports. It is not your typical “Mamma Mia” island, like Mykonos or Santorini. It is actually north of Greece and is opposite Albania – you can take a ferry there if you so desire (we didn’t).  We were docked a short distance away from Corfu Town, and the HoHo bus seemed the most convenient way to get where we wanted to go – namely Kanoni, a small beach resort about 6-7 kms south.  Kanoni is famous for its views of tiny Mouse Island, and the nearby white monastery, but that wasn’t the reason we wanted to go there.

Welcome to Corfu. You may pass.

Mouse Island

Monastery at Kanoni

A causeway connects Kanoni with Perama, across the mouth of the bay. This causeway is perhaps 50 metres away from the end of the airport runway.  You can sit or stand right on the glide path, marked by navigation lights, and hear the roar of the jet engines as the planes fly directly over your head – so low that you duck involuntarily.  I could have sworn each aircraft was heading straight for me, and was going to give me a very close shave!  We spent well over an hour there, and saw about a dozen landings and quite a few take-offs. It was quite something.

Causeway at Kanoni

Plane spotting

Incoming …

Ready for takeoff – 50 metres from us

Let’s see if I can catch one

Any more planes today?

The rest of Corfu seemed rather tame in comparison, but we’d paid for our bus tickets so we did two “laps”, seeing the Old Fortress, the New Fortress, a little bit of the main square and the old town, and the market.  I was surprised to smell a familiar aroma as we drove past a park full of eucalypts.  From the little we saw, Corfu has not had any money spent on it in years.

Monastery cat

A Corfu cove

Executive stairs to the beach

Here be pirates

Corfu old town

The new fort

A familiar scent

After our exertions the previous day we were quite happy to spend today sitting down being driven around. We concluded that you probably need to get away from the town, to see the best of Corfu’s no doubt lovely scenery, but with an early “all aboard”, there wasn’t much chance to do that.

I am pleased to report that we were again triumphant in this evening’s quiz – and the prize was not a notebook or coaster, but a nice bottle of champagne!  Whoever is on our table tomorrow night at dinner will get a nice surprise, as we plan to share it around rather than drink it ourselves.