Spianada - The Souk on the Square
by Chris Holmes
Spianada - The Souk on the Square - Corfu Magazine - Spring/Summer 2011
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Although I’d chosen long-time locals who knew each other, there was, from the start, disagreement over the most representative rendezvous from which to kick off my grand educational tour. From what I could gather from the gesticulating and map-jabbing, the word ‘spianada’ stands as much for a mood or way of life as to the slab of open area north of Union Square.
So we did what everyone does and spent 10 minutes discussing where to discuss the matter.
I never liked History at school, which is why I have a tenacious grasshopper mind for useless facts, such as the reason for the size of the square is that back in medieval times it made good military sense to leave an open space in front of a fortification to give the occupants a wide and clear line of fire. At this point, I have to own up to having previously thought this area was called ‘Spaniada’, which I blame on guide books and my own lack of Italian, which would have told me that ‘spianare’ means flatten or make level.
When the new capital of Corfu was developed, the Esplanade took up approximately 1/3 of the area of the entire town.
More history before we dive into the fray: the summer cricket you see played on the green sward in front of The Liston is the only chance you will get in the whole of Greece of seeing this quintessentially English game in action.
As for the name ‘Liston’, I’ve given up trying to trace the most convincing source. This line of arcaded buildings was originally military barracks for the French and shares the design of the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. Some say the name came from the Venetian ‘lista’, a long narrow strip of ground
which is also the name in Venice for a similar promenade area in the Piazza San Marco. This is annoyingly convincing and clashes with a snobbish theory that I far prefer, that it comes from the French ‘liste’ which named the occupants of the grand houses and one was only allowed access if your name appeared on it.
But enough social niceties. Gird your loins, drain your metrios coffee and plunge into the melee which is Agios Spiridonos Street leading to the magnificent church itself. What a meeting of God and Mammon! Every photograph I took looked ripe for recreating Jesus’ sending the money changers packing from the temple.
a costly camera being snatched from its owner and plunged into the font for a deserved ‘baptism’.
The crowds around St Spiridon’s were beginning to hem me in, so I took a right at the end of the street and curved round to a quiet square with its 17th century church of St Nicholas and the polite request to “Please insert properly dressed”. I didn’t get to see it but, according to the literature, St Nick houses the “biggest part of the Holy Cross that exists in Corfu.”
Don’t forget: whichever church you choose for a moment’s quietness, light a candle for continuing guidance and good luck.
Following a wide circle round and back towards the Square will bring you to Philharmoniki Street, in my opinion the home of the ultimate in tacky towels and statuary which is, I suppose, the price one has to pay for also enjoying the Koukounara Creperie (aromas that took me back to my Yorkshire grandma’s pantry).
Quickly join Theotoki Street and try to resist the counter at Papageorgos ice-creamerie. If you’re lucky, the oom pah pah of the orchestra rehearsing in an upper room will further erode your resolve to watch the waistline.
I wanted to turn right on Capodistriou and at least stroll down to pay my respects to the noble dog that lies across the street outside the Rex restaurant, impervious and insouciant and woe betide anyone who tries to force any movement. But – Surprise, surprise! – my guides stood firm that the “real” Spianada ended at the Europe Café, excluding the tattoo artists but possibly taking in that eccentric portraitist whose appearance so defines the caricature image of an artist that it wouldn’t matter if he’d never touched a brush in his life.
Back to the Liston but I’m not yet allowed to grab a menu and collapse into the comfy Aegli chairs. I was led up to the Palace of St Michael and St George for a history lesson in the debates, the high and low politics, and the local and international intrigues that surrounded the abandonment of the British Protectorate in 1864.
It was in this most prominent of buildings, I was gravely lectured, that resounded much of the rhetoric surrounding the joining of Kerkyra with 'Mother Greece'.
No less a politician than Gladstone was sent out by Disraeli to try and resolve the matter cleanly. He pronounced the matter of Corfu as the most complex he had ever encountered.
No doubt, after a morning’s fierce debate with the typically articulate and persuasive local politicians, he’d have retired with all speed to The Liston for a reviving tsitsibirra and applause for some regimental batsman as he knocks the local fast bowler for a six!
We chose Café 92, right at the north end near the Palace, and were assured with a dazzling smile that THEY were the epicenter of the esplanade.
T-shirt sellers pluck at your sleeve with wares of every message from the obscene to the useful. I collected a garment that listed every basic Greek phrase I could need, the only trouble being it should have been printed upside down for instant reference.
In this one alley, there must be every type of souvenir: cheapo trinketry jostles olive wood craft (how I yearned to trundle away with that wooden Harley Davidson next to the Farinaki’s); kumquat stalls gleam bright orange with the every shape and variety of bottle on offer; beach wear (including a towel emblazoned with the colours of Liverpool Football Club) poses impudently next to the real deal bling of Pegasus Jewelers while a few yards on indignant rumblings over the lush furs on open display in the Sanakidis Emporium.
And there, in the midst of all this grotesquerie stands, the church of St Spiridon, Corfu’s patron saint, built in 1590 and possessing not just a striking bell tower but marvelous ornaments, lamps and icons. Centre-piece is, of course, the tiny crypt of the miraculously preserved body of the saint himself. Times are set aside for the faithful to shuffle through and kiss his slippers which, at the end of each year, tend to have crumbled from the ceaseless lip service. New ones are placed on the holy feet and the old ones snipped up in suitable tiny pieces and distributed to the congregation.
I’m not particularly religious but I know better than to irk the devout: what struck me on my visit was how blatantly visitors were flouting the No Cameras rule. One day, such oafishness will lead to
First thing on being handed the chance of writing up the Spianada was to summon my night-owl, shopping-savvy, candle-lighting, coffee-sipping pals and have them steer me like a tourist through that bustling, shuffling Esplanade where God-meets-Mammon and no one seems to sleep.
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