Corfu Then and Now; Corfu Magazine - Spring/Summer 2011
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Corfu Airport Code: CFU
Corfu - Then & Now
by Rick Johansen
I first visited Corfu in the summer of 1985. I knew
nothing of the island other than what I gleaned from
people who kept telling me I really must come.
“It’s a beautiful place,” my friend would say. “You’ll
fall in love with it.”
Pah! Fall in love with a place where you have to put
soiled toilet paper into a bin next to the toilet?
I don’t think so.
But, to cut a long and highly uninteresting story
short, I decided to make my first visit.
“I stay in a room in Garitsa, just near the airport,”
said my friend. “I’ll telephone the guy, book it fo
r you. Just book a flight.”
I didn’t even know you could book just a flight. I thought you had to
book the whole holiday. But I booked it and soon I was seated on a
cronky old Dan Air Boeing 727 headed for Corfu.
We landed at some crazy time in the middle of the night. This
was good news, I concluded. The airport would be deserted
and we – I went with a mate called Pete – would be in our digs,
crashed out within the hour.
Whoops! Big misjudgment.
There were more than a few aircraft humming and screaming on
the apron and now and then one would roar past on the runwa
y before taking off into the starlit sky.
I was not used to this. Airports back at home pretty well shut down after midnight but this one was a seething, sweating mass of humanity waiting for its luggage. And waiting and waiting and waiting.
The squeaking, clanking conveyor belt eventually brought our luggage and we headed away from the airport. The sun was beginning to rise.
We were too early for our room so we waited for the local café to open and open it did. The caffeine had little effect so when we found our room, we slept.
Corfu Town was much the same 22 years ago except maybe in one area: the smell.
We walked to the Bay of Garitsa and, boy, it smelled bad. It didn’t look to clever, either. The many boats appeared to be bobbing about on what was, to all intents and purposes, an open sewer.
But the smell was all I didn’t like. Corfu Town was bewitching.
Having done no research before I arrived, I knew nothing about St Spiridon, the Venetians or Ginger Beer but I was getting hooked on something.
Travelling the island was an experience in itself.
The north was a spectacular combination of spectacular views and terrifying switchback roads and as you went further south the roads turned into dirt tracks – and that was before Kavos, not after.
And Kavos was the big surprise.
We drove through Benitses late one evening and it was jam-packed with, I regret to say, thousands of drunken Brits, some of whom were dressed. I knew Benitses was where it was at, as they said, but when I saw the place in broad daylight I wondered what the attraction to anyone other than a nightclubber could be.
It was an old fishing village at one point but it looked nothing like one now.
We made Kavos one night to find young men urinating on the beach: nice!
1985 and Kavos was tiny up to what it is now. Even then I thanked the Corfiots for developing the resort which is
so far from anything and anyone else. It was a dump then and it’s a dump now and sooner or later Corfu will need to decide whether it wants Kavos anymore.
Our two weeks flew by, as holidays always do when you spend so much of them travelling, but even back then the development, or was it over-development, of Corfu was becoming an issue.
The 80s onwards saw me return in different guises. With mates, with other mates, with girl, with another girl and, finally, with family. Corfu, as we say of certain things, has something for everyone.
Understandably, you might conclude from my comments that I don’t like any of the changes that have taken place in Corfu, but you’d be wrong.
Oh yes, I love Corfu Town and the magnificent forts and Liston, the glorious beaches of the west coast and the rocky inlets of the east. The spectacular Ropa Valley and, despite the presence of those ludicrous radio transmitters, the peak of Mount Pantocrator are unforgettable and unmissable.
But I like the Kanoni peninsula too partly because, not despite, the aircraft (much quieter these days). And I am not alone. Just take a look at the walkway to Perama and see the huddled groups watching the jets roaring a few feet above them, or from the cafes and restaurants above.
Oh most people come to see Mouse Island but quite a lot get a kick out of seeing the constant coming and going from the airport. I know I do.
And whilst I enjoy the beauty of the Achilleon Palace, I also love the raucous atmosphere at Aqualand.
It’s getting the balance right, isn’t it?
At the moment, Corfu has the balance about right. Just.
It could have done without the open quarrying near the Troumpeta Pass and some of the more crass development in some popular resorts.
But these are minor quibbles.
There is still plenty to maintain the happiness of the traditionalist who professes to enjoy a little modernity too. Corfu does a good job standing still and moving forward all at once.
Off the beaten track, and sometimes on it, you will always find an unexpected village, a town that’s a speck on some maps and forgotten altogether on others, where you can sit in silence and drink coffee.
What brought me to Corfu was someone else’s recommendation. What brings me back, time after time, is what I first saw in 1985.
At the moment, Corfu has the balance about right. Just.
It could have done without the open quarrying near the Troumpeta Pass and some of the more crass development in some popular resorts.
But these are minor quibbles.
There is still plenty to maintain the happiness of the traditionalist who professes to enjoy a little modernity too. Corfu does a good job standing still and moving forward all at once.
Off the beaten track, and sometimes on it, you will always find an unexpected village, a town that’s a speck on some maps and forgotten altogether on others, where you can sit in silence and drink coffee.
What brought me to Corfu was someone else’s recommendation. What brings me back, time after time, is what I first saw in 1985.
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Photo by Pamela Wells - ca. 1968
Photo - Pamela Wells
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