Sanctuary in the City - Mon Repos Estate; Corfu Magazine - Spring/Summer 2010
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Sanctuary in the City - Mon Repos Estate
text & photos by Kelly Huddleston
Just a short walk from Corfu Town Centre, along Garitsa Bay and past a small boat marina and windmill, the gardens of Mon Repos offer a cool garden respite from the superfluity of the city.
Like most cities or large townships, Corfu Town is a frantic, active, pulsating parade of noise and cars and smells and people. The streets in both new town and old town hum and bustle day and night, especially during the summer months when the island welcomes tourists from all over the world and the population balloons as much as fifty percent. With all this activity – the unstoppable units of screeching, honking, speeding cars and motorbikes and tour buses on the roads (and sometimes, when there is no more room, on the sidewalks), the clatter of plates and clink of glasses and sounds of general merriment coming from the sea-view gardens and tucked-away corners and dark, dank interiors of bars and cafes and restaurants and tavernas, the lost, wide-eyed, picture-snapping throng of tourists roaming the streets in search of local products (bottles of kuam-kquat, a lace table runner, some Corfu nuts, left-over pins from the 2004 Olympics in Athens, a bar of olive wood soap) – sometimes, with all this activity, amidst all this craziness, even the most city-loving person might long for a dual environment, a little bit – or large bit – of secluded space, a sanctuary of sorts, where one might stroll in peace. Those who sit in the barking crowd of Corfu Town with head in hands have yet to visit Mon Repos Estate.
Located just above Corfu Town, on the hill of Analipsis and adjacent the ruins of the Palaiopolis of Kerkyra (the acropolis of ancient Kerkyra), the gates of Mon Repos Estate are always open — at least during visiting hours from 8:30–15:00, Tuesday through Sunday. Like most nature-oriented activities on the island of Corfu, daytime admission into the estate is free. As a bonus, canine companions are welcome, although not in the palace. Just past the gates is an information area and large, mounted map clearly labeled with different paths and sites to visit. The most prominent feature of the estate, of course, is Mon Repos Palace.
Built during the British rule, later used as a summer villa by Greece's deposed King George, and the birthplace of Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, Mon Repos Palace is an impressive structure — tiered and pillared with pink highlights and traditional Corfiot green shutters. Inside is a museum with Byzantine remains, furniture and dresses from the period of the British rule, paintings and other Corfu artifacts. What seems more interesting than the exhibit, at least from this writer's perspective, is the first sight of the palace as the pathway straightens from its curvy, tree-lined ascent. It sits rather kingly on top of a hill and offers an expansive view of the clear turquoise blue waters below. Yachts and ferries going to and from Corfu Town look like tiny toy boats from such a high vantage point. You could almost lean over the railing, whistle, and watch them blow away with your breath.
If anything that's what the Mon Repos Estate offers its visitors - a touch of whimsy set in a garden steeped in history. From the palace the circular network of pathways all seem to lead from one antiquity to the next - an ancient Christian chapel with peeling blue frescoes tothe ruins of a Doric
temple. The farther one retreats upon the pathways into the gardens, the more one seems to remember the still, refreshing hush of nature - so much so that it seems somewhat shocking when, suddenly, another human rounds the bend and becomes visible.
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