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Corfu Between Tales and Reality

Among all religious beliefs, the Greek pantheon of colorful gods is perhaps the best described in the history of all human religiosity. There is literally no piece of Greek land, portion of the sea, or the tiniest island that has no origin in radiant old mythology. The island of Corfu is no exception as well. Apparently in the mythological history, it was one of those unnamed islands in the region of Scheria where the mighty Poseidon spent a portion of his eternity with the freshwater nymph Korkyra. Their descendants, the Phaeacians, as described by Homer in Odysseus' adventures, inherited the island and named it after Poseidon's lover. The final shape of the island owes its appearance to Poseidon as well when he separated Paxos from Corfu with his trident in order to create a love nest for him and his wife Amphitrite (sea nymph this time). I don't blame him; both Korkyra and Paxos are beautiful and colorful islands, and he obviously knew his craft well. I understand his affection for nymphs as well; he was the sea god after all, and in the aftermath of the mythological creation, he alone is most likely responsible for the origin of the human race on a total of 227 Greek islands, including Atlantis, but that's a different story.


However, the reality and history of Corfu are much different and much less idyllic. Being in the cross-worlds in the Middle Ages between the Ottoman Empire and western civilization, the history of Corfu was turbulent, to say the least. The island managed to survive and keep its Greek identity after numerous raids by barbarians and conquests by Europeans during the medieval period. The origin of the first people on the island is not much known. According to Homer, they had some relationship with the Mycenaeans (Dorians), but it is not scientifically proven true. Furthermore, there were no ancient ruins dedicated to Poseidon at all. There are two ruins excavated so far, one of a temple dedicated to Hera and the other, the most significant temple built in around 580 BC, dedicated to goddess Artemis, which was monumental in dimensions for the time. In the above picture is its full, around 20 meters long, pediment portraying a living Gorgon (mythical creatures with hair made of living, venomous snakes, most likely Medusa or one of her sisters).


After ancient times, the island was ruled by the Romans first and then went under the Byzantine Empire. After the Byzantine period ended (around 1267 AD), Corfu was vulnerable to the constant pirate attacks and raids by its neighbors and crusaders and stabilized only when Venetians occupied the island in 1386. These olive trees from the picture above are seeded by Venetians and considered to be more than 500 years old. The Venetians ruled for more than 400 years and ended their rule in 1797. Most of the Venetian dominance left a big mark on today's island architecture, including the large fortress. After that, the island was occupied by the French, followed by a strange alliance of Russians and Turks, then the British, and finally, on 21 May 1864, after the London Treaty, Corfu and all Ionian islands united with Greece.


The most important milestone in the history of Corfu happened during the Turkish siege of 1716, when Venetians managed to defend the island and stopped the Turks in their advances toward Europe. Fighting alongside Corfiot’s were Venetians, Germans, Italians, Maltese ships, Papal galleys, galleys from Genoa and Tuscany, Spanish galleys, and even Portuguese forces. The Turkish failure in Corfu was a historical event of enormous importance—who knows what would happen if the result of the battle went otherwise? However, the other parts of Greece and their southern islands weren't that lucky and went under Ottoman occupation, causing a large number of refugees and migration toward Corfu. In the following centuries, more immigrants arrived from Illyria, Sicily, Crete, Mycenae, and the Aegean islands. Of course, in this small blog story, I didn't mean to go much into historical events, but I always like to learn a bit more about places we travel to. If you want to know more, the reference links below are a good point to start googling.


This summer, we visited Corfu and its picturesque village of Messonghi. At the same point in history, the small village, along with neighboring Moraitika, was established by Cretans and Peloponnesians. With its interesting feature of the Messonghi River, small and nice beach, crystal-clear waters, and amazing people, this village was our host for 11 days of our vacation, and we fully recommend the stay. Beside the archaeological museum, we also visited the Serbian House dedicated to the Great War events and one nice museum called "Casa Parlante", dedicated to the ordinary life of one British aristocratic family from British rule in the middle of the 19th century. The most impact on me personally was the traditional Corfu dishes called Sofrito and Pastitsada, and their recipes dated back 200 years in the past. Last but not least, our big thanks goes to Spyros, his family, and their fine Georgina apartments, where we stayed the entire time.

Refs:
https://atcorfu.com/corfu-history/
https://greeking.me/blog/visit-corfu/item/207-corfu-the-island-of-the-phaeacians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu
 

Πάργα

In our part of the world summer vacation is the most important one for most people. There are several reasons for this, and probably the major one is that during July and August in this part of the western Balkans, where we live, temperatures can go as high as 45°C (113°F), and the obvious solution is to pack your bags, jump into the car, and go to one of four nearby seas for a couple of weeks to cool off and enjoy (and also to change the everyday scenery and recharge your inner batteries, which are always seriously depleted when summers come).


Due to the shortest distance and good roads, Greece is probably the best destination for a car trip to the seaside that takes less than 10 hours of driving. Unfortunately this is one of few routes for all those "gastarbeiter" people who mainly work in Germany and other western countries and during summers form very long rivers of vehicles toward their home destinations in Turkey and other countries. When they hit borders along the way, this is a nightmare you want to avoid. Once we had bad luck and got stuck in one of 7 lanes between the Serbian and Macedonian (FYROM) borders and waited 4 hours to pass through. This is why we always travel halfway during the night and cross the borders around dawn or so to avoid crossing peaks and giant waiting times. The return way is always smoother, and we mainly use borders for rest and shopping. Like I already wrote in the post Aegean Sea before, short car destinations in Greece are all connected to the Aegean Sea, but this time we chose to check out the Ionian basin and try the relatively new motorway the Greeks built not so long ago. Only once I spent vacation in this part of Greece, and I remember it was a hard job for my father, as the curvy road from the Aegean to the Ionian Sea included one mountain after another, and driving through them required full concentration all the way with frequent resting points. Today, this is a different story with the new modern freeway, and the same destination is now reachable within 3 hours or so. Believe it or not, this new route includes about 60 tunnels almost 50 km long combined, and during summer heat, driving through all the tunnels comes extra handy and relaxing.

Since this was the first time for me driving this road, I decided to use a little help from modern GPS navigation. It was only needed for the last hour of the trip, where we needed to leave the motorway and find our way to the final destination in Parga, a small and old town located some 40 km south of Igoumenitsa port across the Corfu island. I didn't have any specialized GPS car devices before, and I decided to risk it a little and use the smartphone instead. I bought cheap navigation software called "Navi Ninasus" despite not so many recommendations online. To my surprise, it handled all the situations extremely well and pointed us exactly to the front gate of our villa without any problems. Rerouting was perfect and fast, and it proves very well on the ship and on foot as well. You can see it in action in the photos below, and if you want to save some serious money in the big GPS market, this one is a very good solution.


When we visited our travel agency (Big Star Niš) and told them that we decided to go to Parga this year, Stefan, one of the agency owners, while describing the house we wanted to hire, said something about a nearby olive forest that looks exactly like the scenery from "The Lord of the Rings", a fantasy trilogy based on J. R. R. Tolkien's famous book. Of course, I was a little skeptical about this but at the same time very curious to explore. The moment of our arrival, when I first saw the large olive tree just above our villa, I was eager to go to the forest as soon as possible. So we did the very next day, and if you look at the next couple of photos from the woods when we made a shortcut our way to the Lichnos beach, I am sure that, like me, you will agree that old olive trees are something special to see, and to tell you the truth, if Bilbo Baggins or Gandalf jumped out of some tree, I wouldn't be surprised at all. My only regret is that we didn't hit the time when olives are being collected with large nets villagers are using for this purpose. I am sure this would be something worthwhile to see. Needless to say, our landlady on our last day gave us a bottle of olive oil as a present, made exactly from the olives collected right from the woods we saw and photographed, and with this blog post I thank her for all her hospitality and kindness. The same level of gratitude goes to Stefan and "Big Star", which is one of the best travel agencies in Niš.


Perhaps to better feel and, in this case, hear the forest, I took a couple of seconds-long video clip showing all the beauty of old olives:


According to a couple of wikis I read, I learned that Pargians are descendants from the old Greek tribe called Thesprotians. Perhaps the best-known resident in ancient times was Odysseus himself, who married Thesprotia's queen of the time by the name Kallidike and spent many years in this area leading the tribe and fighting many wars as their king. Unfortunately, if we leave mythology aside, real history for Pargians was not so cheerful, especially much later in the Dark Ages when these people shared violent times with the active neighborhood. They survived different rulers and occupations starting with Normans, Venetians, French, British, and Ottomans, not to mention constant attacks from various pirates from the sea. Today, the monumental fortress built for their defense is the sour witness of the old times, standing above the small town for centuries. In the town below, old narrow stone streets, similar to those of Corfu, are now wonderful tourist attractions, along with four beaches, all very different in nature and appearance. Surrounded by large hills and dense forests, Parga today is one of the few real tourist paradises during summer, filled with voices of dozens of different languages, especially at night when it is not easy to find an empty chair in local tavernas. In addition to Parga's social life, to me, Greek vacations are always more about reading books and enjoying peaceful moments. This time I brought "The Lost Symbol" and swallowed it in just a couple of days. If you want to learn something more about worldwide Freemasonry, this is the book for you, especially if you are, like me, a big fan of Robert Langdon's adventures. We had a large garden in front of the house with a big stone table where, below the shadows of lemon leaves, reading Dan Brown's book got additional pleasure. On the other hand, for Viktor no summer vacation can pass without his tablet and a couple of video games (picture to the right).


Just 20 km offshore, there are two small islands called Paxos and Antipaxos. According to the legend, Poseidon himself used his mighty trident and sliced the southern part of Corfu, making this small archipelago paradise just for him and his wife, Amphitrite, to enjoy some peace and quiet. Compared to nowadays worldwide religions, I really love Greek mythology and their amazing stories. I mean, come on, if you are creating a mass of fairy tales, using wild imagination is a must, and ancient Greeks did it very well. Of all religions in existence today and those extinguished in the past, Greek former beliefs are probably the best in the history of mankind. Anyway, there are many boats sailing to the Paxoi Islands every morning, providing a one-of-a-kind experience of swimming in the same waters where Poseidon enjoyed his time with his wife alone on the beach. A small boat even entered one of the sea caves, providing a unique feeling for us, but the best was the moment when one of the boats turned loudspeakers toward the cave and played James Brown's famous song "I Feel Good". The echo from the cave provided a sound effect I had never heard before. Don't miss this trip if you are spending vacation in Parga or Gaios, the main town of Paxos Island, where we enjoyed "Τσιπούρα" delicious Mediterranean fish with teeth.


The second boat trip was a ship cruise to Corfu and the island of Vido (Greek: Βίδο), a special place for Serbian history where more than 5000 Serbian soldiers were buried at sea. At the beginning of World War I, the whole Serbian army was forced to retreat by the major offensive by Austrian and Bulgarian armies. In just two years of war, the Serbian army declined from 420,000 to the number of 150,000, ending on the island of Corfu with the help of Allied forces' ships. Those who didn't survive harsh wintertime during the long walk over Albania's mountains were buried on the island of Vido, and those who couldn't find empty burial space on the island were just buried in the sea near the island. This very spot where they are buried is called Blue Sea Tomb, and there is now an almost hundred-year-old poem, "Ode to a Blue Sea Tomb", describing the pain and suffering of the Serbian people and soldiers during WWI. I simply wrote "History is sometimes painful" in the book in the memorial. And I meant not only Serbian history. For more about our trip to Corfu, please read the post Streets of Corfu, where I experienced a a unique kind of déjà vu that I tried to describe there. Following are photos from Corfu and Vido, and the second image is of the Serbian House at 19 Moustoxidou Street, which is one great museum dedicated to the WWI events.


But life is always going on, and history is there to remind us of our failures and our brightest moments. We should use it to learn from it, but honestly speaking, I have that feeling that humans have a long way to go in order to start avoiding mistakes and stop repeating violent behavior from the past.


Well, this post is also a photo collection from the vacation, and now is the time to choose the best photo taken. Of course this is subjective business, but if you ask me, the honor goes to my wife, who took the opening photo of this post. I am sure for some of you this would be just a bunch of rocks on the shore, but for me this is the perfect example of accidental photography and Pareidolia. My wife actually just wanted to take a photo of the rocky formation from the taxi boat when we were returning from the beach to Parga, but after we saw it on the big screen, from this angle, it looked amazingly like a giant prehistoric fish or sea dinosaur with a large fin or flapper on its back.

Needless to say, we all fully recommend Parga and the Ionian Sea for summer vacation. I am sure we will be returning here in the future, maybe next time to northern Corfu or one of the southern Ionian islands.