The bronze tower of Dassia

At last the mystery of the strange bronze tower on the main road at Dassia has been explained. With a poster on it telling us to protect the environment, and a very smart paved area surrounding it, there has been a lot of speculation regarding its purpose. Someone reported seeing lots of pipework being installed underground, and the village of Spartilas was talking about rabbits. This later turned out to be badly spoken English and was in fact "rubbish".

I met the vice Mayor of the Municipality of Faiakon today, and now have it on very good authority that it is in fact a new invention to help reduce the volume of our rubbish. Even more exciting, on Wednesday 18 February at 11am, there is an official opening ceremony when there will be a demonstration of how it operates.

Apparently, there is a door which opens electronically when you approach it and a voice welcomes you to use its facility. You can then throw in your bag of household rubbish and the door closes. When there is enough rubbish in this holding area, it is shot up to the top of the tower, where it is squeezed and compacted. Any excess fluids run to the bottom of the tower and into the pipes below, which in turn feed into the biological waste plant at the camping site next door. Once the tower is nearly full of compacted dried up rubbish, it automatically notifies the local waste disposal team who will come and collect it. The tower then self cleans and is ready for the next load. Made in Larissa, it is designed to hold thirty-five loads from the big rubbish bins.

What a brilliant idea - let's hope it works!
Sarah

How times change

I know we often say this, but this morning being Sunday we thought we would have some breakfast at home and I asked Spiros if he wanted toast, bagel or muffin? With that, is a choice of cream cheese or butter.

Also, last night we had decided to cook on our outside grill, Greek style, but it was so cold that we couldn't face the thought of standing outside even in front of a warm gas grill, so I decided to put the chicken in the oven and added to it some chinese duck rolls and sticky ribs from the freezer.

Then we started laughing as we discussed how times have changed. When I first came here the bread was fabulous the day it was baked then turned into rock, so to slice it to toast it was a major operation. That is if you even had a toaster. The 'butter' - if you could find it to buy - was a lump of yellow, cheesy smelling substance. The grill of course was a 'real' one, requiring twigs, charcoal, much attention, no wind and loads of patience. Also I wouldn't even have dreamed of being able to dive into the freezer for the 'sticky ribs' - I would have had to spend hours trying to explain to the butcher what I wanted, re-butcher them when I got home, try to make an approximation of a BBQ sauce, then stand for ages over said 'real' grill. Think I prefer it now!

Having said all that, today we went to one of our favourite restaurants in Strinilas for Sunday lunch (on the basis that if the weather stays good, we will soon have to begin working on Sundays to get the villas ready and this might be the last chance this season). The food was as good as ever, but there was an item on the menu which was unfamiliar. We usually have lamb or goat 'in a pot' sort of pot roasted, but also on the menu today was 'zig something' - I didn't get the word - and when I asked what it was my husband said 'lamb, only older and bigger', which conjured up a very strange picture. Last time they also had 'patsa podi' loosely translated as 'foot stew'. I hope those places never change!
Diana

Beachcombing

As you can see from the precarious angle of these beach huts, Barbati beach has been badly hit by the recent strong storms.

I love to walk on the beach after a storm to see what has been washed up and collect wood for my fire. Some of the driftwood has wonderful unusual shapes and I don't want to burn it, so the pile in the garden is growing - maybe one day I will find something creative to do with it.
Sarah

Corfu breakfast

Decisions, decisions...

Last week Susan very kindly gave me a jar of her home-made orange and citron marmalade - the very same citrons that she wrote about on this blog. I still haven't decided what to do with my "nogged" fruit yet.

When I arrived home from the office on Friday, another kind friend had popped by with a jar of her home-made marmalade, this time made from oranges, lemons, grapefruit and more of those famous citrons.

Susan obviously spent last weekend in the kitchen because on Monday she produced another jar of marmalade, this time just citron.

This morning I picked up a lovely fresh crusty loaf from my local shop and instead of using the jar of marmalade (orange) which I had already started, I decided to try one of the three new ones... but which one? Too much of a decision on a rainy Thursday morning, so I had a slice of bread with a different preserve on each. I still can't decide which one I like best, so will probably do the same again tomorrow.
Sarah

White Corfu

Now I have seen it all. I spend two weeks in wonderful sunshine on the beach in The Dominican Republic and from there it seems to be downhill all the way. Snow, slush and ice in London, then back here to rain and, as you can see from the photo, snow as well!
Diana

Corfu Recycling

Corfu Recycling was founded in 2001 and is based at Temploni in the centre of Corfu. Its business is the recycling of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. It gathers, separates and processes over 9,000 tons of metals per year and works in close cooperation with a network of recycling companies throughout Greece. Corfu Recycling has quickly expanded and now has 14 employees. The range of goods reycled is almost endless, but includes vehicles, household appliances, PCs and batteries. They have a large network of suppliers who gather all kinds of metal waste from around the island and take it to them for recycling. But of course you can also bring your own metal waste to the factory for recycling, to get rid of it AND get paid for it.

Back to work

Enough of sitting on the beach, time to get back to real life and whilst The Dominican Republic is fascinating, I definitely found my thoughts straying back to business and the coming season, and was pretty much ready to come home to Corfu and start work again.

Having said that, there was a problem just getting back to Europe – we selected a flight day which just happened to be the day that the UK staggered to a halt in the snow. Delayed flight, no information from tour operator, finally arrived at Gatwick to be told the runways were iced up and we would circle for a bit while they were cleared.

Then the stands weren’t cleared, then the doors were iced up and there would be a delay in getting the luggage off, but we finally collected all our bits and dressed in our ‘medium’ weight clothing - i.e. OK for most places but not the UK in minus 5 - we went down to wait for the Gatwick Express. As voices kept announcing its imminent arrival, it began to snow again and after about an hour and a half another Gatwick-Victoria train arrived, stuffed to the gills, with the rail staff saying there was definitely no room for more passengers. Along with about 200 other freezing passengers, we squeezed on and arrived at Victoria an hour later, ready to pay our fares, only to be waved through the gates by the staff who seemed to be relieved just to have successfully got a trainload of passengers safely to Victoria! Very nice of Southern Trains I thought, since they could have made a fortune that day!

First conversation when back in the UK was with a fellow villa owner whose Tour Operator has dropped one of his houses altogether and wants a major price reduction on the other one. Already had a call from one of our Tour Operators looking for a ‘major reduction across the board’ on our apartments. Looks like a challenging season to come. On the plus side with the advent of Easyjet from Manchester and Bristol the door is gradually opening wider for ‘short breaks’ - and the euro has staggered up the odd couple of points.

Whilst away I did read a survey which found that although the top 9 out of 10 holiday destinations were outside the Eurozone, Spain had crept back in at no. 10, and Greece had begun to move back up the list. Seems that some of our non-euro neighbours are not as cheap as everyone thinks, which was a point re-enforced by some relatives of ours who had been to Turkey and found smaller items like coffees equally or more expensive than at home in Greece. Also for the first time for months, in the UK house prices rose in January – not by a lot, but at least they did rise rather than stay in freefall.

So perhaps, whilst things may not be exactly looking up, we are all coming to terms with the economic situation as it is and going on as far as possible with our plans – buying, selling building etc. Again, I thank my lucky stars that we are not Dom. Rep (or Bulgarian or Spanish) agents or developers with hundred of ‘units’ to sell and ‘off plan buyers’ dropping out all around us. Thank heavens for small ‘niche’ markets like Corfu!
Diana

From the sublime to the ridiculous

The view from our window when we got back to London from The Dominican Republic.
Diana

Lost in the plot - a tale of two Spiros

The weather has been wet for the past couple of weeks. Not cold in the slightest, but greyish and rather dismal, so we have had to abandon most of our plans for visiting plots of land and houses for sale - there's not much point in a photograph of gloomy skies trying to advertise the joys of living in Corfu!

I had been having phone calls on a regular basis from "Spiros" with land for sale - so that when my husband answered the telephone the other day and took a message from "Spiros" I thought I knew who I was meeting and which bit of land I was going to look at.

However, as husband recounted the conversation which began with the caller introducing himself as "Spiros" and husband replying "Which Spiros of the many in Corfu?" and being given some pointers as to which Spiros indeed was trying to make contact, it gradually dawned on me that the Spiros in question was not the one I had thought I was going to meet. I'm sure that the original phone contact was with a Spiros from Kassiopi, but I have absolutely no idea at what point during the many phone calls that Spiros No.1 became Spiros No.2. (If there is a Spiros from Kassiopi reading this blog, please do phone again, because I have just been to see someone else's plot of land!)

As this is the second time I have got my Spiros' mixed up, this is going to take some living down.

Which leads me to the next part of the tale. We managed to dodge the raindrops on Friday morning and drove with Spiros No.2 to his land somewhere between Skripero and Paleokastritsa. I've written before about how difficult it is to locate plots of land. This time, being with the owner, we found the plot but almost got lost in it!

I wonder how many estate agents would have scrambled through the undergrowth as Sarah and I did? At one point Sarah grabbed the camera and took the attached photo as evidence of what we get up to on an ordinary working day. We had, at this point, already been pushing our way through brambles, climbing slopes and counting Spiros' olive trees for almost half an hour. If you have seen "The Blair Witch Project" you will instantly be able to imagine the atmsophere. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Sarah hasn't seen it, so I suffered alone. (This has to be the most scary film of all time).

If anyone wants to buy in the region of 30,000 square metres of (almost) unexplored, off-the-beaten-track Corfiot olive grove, please do get in touch with Corfuhomefinders. A snip at 250,000 euros! Not all of it is overgrown - honestly.
Susan

New Doc on the Block!

We are very pleased that Doctor Alexandros Tsopelas, from "The British Surgery" in Dassia, has now opened a surgery right in the centre of Corfu town. Trained in the UK, and a member of the Royal College of Physicians, Doctor Alex is a GP who also specialises in diabetes, dermatology, acupuncture and clinical hypnosis - and he speaks perfect English.

He can be found on the third floor of 39 Alexandros Avenue (near to San Rocco Square), telephone 26610 24096 or 6945 791120.
Sarah

Car boot sales

Every Sunday morning there is a "car boot" sale at La Veranda restaurant in Dassia. In fact it's more of a table top sale, but that doesn't have the same exciting ring as "car boot". All sorts of goodies are on sale, ranging from second hand books, household items, children's clothes and toys, and home made pies and pasties.

Another similar sale takes place at CJ's bar in Ipsos, but this is every other Sunday morning and by my reckoning the next one will be Sunday 1st February. Again, there are plenty of bargains to be had!
Sarah

Welcome to property sales - Dominican style?

Walking along the beach the other day, we paused to look at a block of apartments just being built (more on building methods in a minute) and couldn't help but admire the 3rd floor penthouse and thinking it would make quite a nice little winter retreat.

Immediately a gentleman appeared, shook hands and said, 'Do you want to buy one'. When we asked how much our chosen apartment would cost, he said, "$180,000 and you only have to give me 25% deposit now and the bank will give me the rest and you pay later". Nice arrangement, so Spiros asked him how much interest on the bank loan. "12%, very good" he said, "and you pay it over 20 years. Just give me the 25% deposit."

To make matters entirely clear, we repeated, "We can have that frontline beach apartment for $180,000?" "Yes," he said, "one just like it, and while it is being built (the one we were looking at was finished) we give you 'free' holiday club membership, you get special deals on your holidays here while you wait for your apartment. You just have to go over there, arrange to go to our presentation, collect your 'free' t-shirt and bottle of rum etc. etc."

Co-incidentally the day before we were out in the car, missed a turning for our hotel and ended up at the back of this particular development - where there must have been about 500 apartments currenty under construction and only about 6 are actually beachfront, so I have a feeling that our 'one just like it' would have been one of those being built in the narrow rows stretching back from the beach, with delightful views of the block next door!

We also learned yesterday that even if you buy a place 'near the beach' you won't necessarily have beach access. The hotels can't stop you walking along their beach but they close all the road entrances with security guards and one hotel joins another with no space in between. On the 30km stretch of beach where our hotel is located we asked the Avis agent where else we could drive to go through to another section of the beach. He pointed out only TWO places where 'the public' can go onto the beach - on a 30km stretch of beach! Consequently you might buy a property near the beach, or even with sea view, and still have to drive a considerable distance to a public beach access point.

We also sat and watched the builders. All apartments are constructed with one 'breeze block' (no insulation) concrete box style, then a wooden roof.
The builders spent a considerable time resting, then the breeze blocks were pulled up to the second floor one at a time on a rope. Heaven knows how long it takes to build at that rate, and it would be a bit sad to think that your fabulous beachfront property was in reality just a single brick construction, concrete box.

As we left, Leonardo, the salesman on the beach, asked what we did for a a living and we said "We develop and sell property." "Oh, just like me!" he said. I hope not.
Diana

There are lemons and there are LEMONS!

Actually, not lemons in this case, but citrons - a fruit largely appreciated for its peel, which is candied or used as a "spoon sweet" in the Mediterranean.

We found our citrons today on a tree in the garden of Woodland Villa near the village of Choroepiskopi in the central north of the island. The trees thrive in a frost-free climate, but they are not a common sight in Corfu. The ordinary-sized lemon came from the supermarket!
Susan

Stepping outside

I love it here. I have to say I do understand why all the Canadian 'silverbirds' (not sure if that is correct, supposed to be a nice way of saying pensioners) choose to come and spend their winters here. This morning I started an email to Susan and we were marooned in the hotel lobby (about the size of Corfu airport, with ponds, parrots etc.) due to torrential Corfu style rain. Settled down with a lemon tea and about 10 minutes later it stopped, the sun came out and that was it for the day. Temperature about 29 degrees, so off to the beach.

Having said that, boy, are there some downsides. We wanted to have a look at real estate here. Just a quick scan in an agents window, maybe a quick chat. We left the protection of the hotel, past the security guards and crossed the road. All the shopkeepers grab you, literally grab you, and shriek at you until they work out what language you speak (we are having a certain amount of fun with 'Greek' as our answer to French, Spanish, English?) and you quite genuinely have to fight them off - they use a handshake as an opportunity not to let go!

The staff in the hotel are very friendly but even the hotel has a sideline in 'holiday clubs' for which "you DEFINITELY do not have to pay anything and if you want to take advantage of our special rates/rooms etc. We just want you to come for a short time and listen to our presentation and collect your 'free' t shirt". We had actually begun to scuttle out of the room at the word 'presentation' so we did manage to escape. Apparently you pay a sum of money in return for which you get priority bookings, rates, etc. in all their hotels worldwide, but they don't tell you that, just keep saying you do not have to pay ANYTHING!

Everyone here is selling something and you really can't walk down the street without being harassed every step of the way. Jamaica was reasonably bad and generally in the Caribbean, and Thailand if I remember rightly, there are vendors in the villages and on the beaches, but this is something else! Spiros actually spent a few moments explaining to one shopowner that the more we get hassled the less inclined we are to buy and that in general, the British are of this opinion. But I think his words definitely fell on stony ground.

When we used to go to Hania and Rethymnon in Crete, many of the restaurants line the harbour and have people standing outside with menus trying to drag punters in. I used to think this was bad enough, but now these people look like angels by comparison with what we found here. Sorry to make comparisons with Greece - but generally speaking we do not do that to visitors to 'our' country. Some of the shopkeepers might be a little enthusiastic in the promotion of their wares but as far as I know they never cross the line so that visitors decide not to bother to leave their hotel again because they just get hassled too much.
Diana

A winter walk

A miserable overcast day today, trying to rain all day long. Rather than sit inside by the fire, my son and I decided to take the dog for a walk up to the monastery near where we live.

Dedicated to the Prophet Ilias, it is on top of a hill between Kato and Ano Korakiana. You can get a nice view of it from the Agios Markos to Ano Korakiana road, to your left when heading in the Ano Korakiana direction. There is a sign to the monastery from the Kato to Ano Korakiana road, and then you have to keep your eyes open for a galvanised gateway infront of the path which leads up the hill.

Not being particularly fit(!) it took me ten minutes to walk up the path to the top, from where there is a lovely all round view towards Ipsos and the sea beyond, the villages of Ano Korakiana and Agios Markos, and further north west towards Paleocastritsa. Today wasn't the best of days for views, as there was a lot of low cloud, but the monastery itself is well worth the walk, being very impressive and atmospheric.

We scrambled around, rang the bell which hangs outside and tried to imagine what life was like for the monks who lived there. Inside is fairly intact and thankfully not vandalised, and apparently there is a service held every year on Saint Ilias day, 20th July.
Sarah

Gossip-opolis

With apologies for the 'Gringlish' above, but Corfu really has lived up to its reputation as a hot-bed of rumour and gossip!

Our shop manageress, Loraine (she really does spell it with one "r"), came in bristling with indignation - and when Loraine bristles, boy does she bristle! Apparently she no longer works for us - according to the latest rumour doing the rounds, she has left the shop never to return! As far as we can ascertain the only basis for this hot, and totally inaccurate, gossip, is that she had two mornings off earlier in the week!

I always used to say that Corfu was like a small English town with the sea all around it - and wasn't I right?
Susan

All Inclusive - the reality

The ‘economy drive’ seemed like a good idea last week when I booked it. I chose the hotel because it is on one of the beaches widely renowned as ‘best in the Caribbean’, and I did know that this is ‘hotel land’ and I figured ‘how bad can it be?’ Now it has turned into all the things I knew I always hated about all inclusives.

The beach is FABULOUS - miles and miles of white soft sand, and beautiful blue sea, so the objective is fulfilled at least from one point of view. But these hotels seem to be all about the food and drink, and nothing else. This one has one massive scrum buffet, plus five or six ‘a la carte’ restaurants including Argentinian and Japanese. All you see are people rushing around with plates filled with every type of food imaginable and when they leave the tables, the plates left behind are still filled with enough food to provide them with dinner all over again. And no one has a drink in just one hand, they have one in each hand.

Breakfast finishes at 10 am, lunch begins at 12 and finishes at 3, dinner begins at 6 and finishes at 10. In between there is a ‘Mac’ snack bar, just in case anyone gets peckish. The rest of the time you spend walking the miles of pathways from the rooms to the beach and to the restaurants – there isn’t time to do anything else. And of course, having said that, there isn’t anything to do except go on excursions offered by your tour company. The minute you step outside the hotel you are pounced on by salesmen of everything from cigars to paintings, plus a limited range of the kind of souvenirs you find everywhere. Still, they are the only kind of local enterprise so you have to admire them.

In the tour operator’s local information guide you are told not to rent a car because there are potholes in the road (remind you of anywhere?) and it is much safer to go with a guided tour – all of which seem to cost an amazing amount of money - i.e. $100+ per person minimum.

Funny that, I bought a Lonely Planet guidebook which is usually quick to say if they consider anything to be potentially dangerous and they say ‘the best way to see the island is by renting a car’! If you go with your tour operator just a couple of times the ‘cheap’ holiday suddenly is not quite so cheap, unless you really plan to spend your whole time in the hotel resort, and I suppose a lot of people do just that.

I bought 12 books with me and today I finished last Sunday’s papers. I am beginning to worry I will run out of things to read and then what will I do? The bulk of clients are Spanish speaking (apart from the Russians who are here in their hundreds) so papers etc. are in Spanish – I guess a quick course in Spanish is on the cards (in fact they do Spanish lessons by the pool each morning, before morning aerobics).

It is all so different from the way tourism works in Greece, where our tourists are visitors who become a part of everyday life virtually the minute they arrive and who, if they finally buy a property in Corfu, become an immediate part of the community in which they live. I guess we will leave here knowing nothing more about daily life than I read in the Lonely Planet guide, which seems such a pity, although it makes me appreciate even more the way our visitors join us and get to know the people in the villages, the bars and the restaurants they visit. They take a little bit of Corfu with them when they leave (which of course is why so many come back and buy their homes from us!)
Diana

And today's blog comes from…

...The Dominican Republic.

What can I say? We always start to feel in need of the sun at this time of year, to set us up for the frantic preparations for the next Corfu season, and also because during the season we hardly ever actually get to the beach – more like a frantic rush on a Sunday, down to Santa Barbara, quick swim, 30 minutes on the beach, and then back to work. This, in contrast, is all about the beach, and on the basis of best beach, cheapest holiday it had to be Dom Rep.

The flight from London was vile. Well, nine hours on a charter flight was never going to be good, just bearable. I was fairly depressed when I saw six large planes in line at the arrivals building, but the airport was a surprise, thatched buildings, lots of luggage conveyors and a quick passage through This island has four airports to service its two million tourists a year - I think we have one million and one airport, so if we ever get the new Lefkimmi airport things will be slightly more balanced.

I knew absolutely nothing about the Dom Rep, except that it is the cheapest tourist destination in the Caribbean and the fastest growing. Also that it is very poor and there is virtually no local tourism infrastructure of restaurants, shops etc. It appears that big hotels saw the value of the beach and realised that in order to bring tourism they had to provide all the facilities themselves. As the taxi took us along the main road we saw signs of major new road building, power plants, factories, and tourism service businesses. Then, guess what, the next sign I saw was for an estate agency who have a franchise in Corfu and then the second sign was for another estate agency with an office in Corfu. I began to wonder if I would see DomRephomefinders and DomReppremierproperty – but not so far.

Wherever you go there is no escape it seems, but I have to confess I have to go and have a look at the estate agency I have been told is ‘just down the road’ and see what the property sale situation is in this particular island. I know the property for sale in the rest of the Caribbean is generally in a different league, so I wonder what it is like here.
Diana

Where to go on holiday when you live in Corfu?

It is not that easy to decide where to spend holidays when you live on an island with tempting beaches around every corner. From the moment that I first moved to Greece (I was in Athens for three years) I have felt as if I was on holiday at the end of every single working day. Being childless in those days, we used to pop to the nearest taverna and sit outside in the balmy evening warmth and I was instantly transported from "real life" to holidays.

For many years after we moved to Corfu we didn't actually have the traditional one or two-week break - mostly because I worked in the summer and husband in the winter, so there was no time, apart from Christmas, when we actually had the possibility to take time off together. We certainly didn't suffer in any way - every weekend, and quite often during the week as well, we would pack the kids into the car and go for a quick swim at one of the nearest beaches. Lovely Corfu provides sand when you need to build castles and dams, rocky pools for shell-seeking and octopus catching, and a myriad of swimming pools when nothing else will do but jumping into deep water again and again and again. The age of the child determined the choice of beach, and we didn't find it a chore to go where they wanted, especially since there were so many different ones to choose from.

We at Corfuhomefinders all have our own favourite sort of holiday. Diana prefers winter sun and usually jets off to somewhere glamorous sounding at the end of a long aeroplane journey. Family in Britain usually calls Sarah and me to visit old haunts back in the UK. My absolute holiday of choice would be a city break - for me that is what we don't have in Corfu - and we have a list of destinations ready to visit when time and money allow. Helga actually likes staying put - and who can blame her?
Susan

Wined and dined by my "sympethera"

We are celebrating today. Its a special "round-numbered" birthday of a family member and I found myself getting my tongue in a twist whilst telling Loraine, from the office, that we are being wined and dined by our son-in-law's mother, who is English and on holiday in Corfu to celebrate the occasion. How much easier is the Greek equivalent description of the relationship "sympethera". It also covers the awkwardness at the beginning of such relationships. You don't have to fumble over whether it is appropriate to use Christian names right at the start - but automatically use the title. How odd it would be to say any of the following: "Good morning son-in-law's mother" or "daughter's husband's mother" or even "Marcus' mother". Jane and I would simply call ourselves "sympethera", and it also somehow makes you feel like family, and therefore a bit more special, than the simple use of the Christian name.

Of course (this is Greece, after all) it isn't so straightforward with other relationships. My sister-in-law (husband's sister), for instance is my "kouniada" but I am her "nifi" or bride. If I had a brother, his wife, equally my sister-in-law, would be my "nifi" not "kouniada"! This is to do with hierarchy in the family - any sons in a family bring their wives home to the patriarchal home and the title is thus established "nifi or bride of the family".

This bringing of the wife home by the male members of the family is exactly the opposite of the English tradition, where the daughter is far more likely to bring her husband to her family home than vice-versa. The old saying "Your son's your son till he finds him a wife, but your daughter's your daughter for the whole of her life" just doesn't quite work in Greece.
Susan

Winter? What winter?

It's Sunday morning, 11.30 a.m. on January 18th and the in-the-shade temperature outside is 16 degrees! The sun is shining and there are little wispy white clouds all across the sky. Sorry, everybody not in Corfu, but this reminds me of August in Yorkshire!

Those of us who do live here are very well aware that Corfu is not heaven-on-earth, that there are many aspects of life here that could do with radical improvement/change/abolition, but as long as we don't lose the ability to appreciate the good things that we are handed on a plate, then there is hope for us all!
Susan