Northwest Corfu Autumn Walks Week with Autumn Flowers - September 2008
Report on Arillas walks week - Work in Progress - More to come
Day 1
A sunny warm start, at 1000am on Arillas seafront. Everyone was on time, always a relief, at least to the leaders. The group headed off northwards along the seafront, seeing a number of introduced plants - Arundo, Agave, Carpobrotus - then turned inland on side road by the Evtykhia taverna, examining multi-coloured Mirabilis - the remarkable miracle-of-Peru which has flowers of different colours (white, yellow, red, pink, purple) on the same plant. More Mirabilis and other flora were seen on waste land behind, plus some dramatic, red-leaved castor-oil plants. Returning to the side road, the group circled around back of a small valley, with an unusual number of exotic, introduced grasses. Red peppers and tomatoes filled glasshouses, and plentiful small dates clustered on the nearby Thetis Hotel's Canary Island date palm. The group was particularly impressed by the remarkably large (8-10m tall) flowering Yuccas - probably Y. elephantipes. Corfu's other connexion with Yuccas is through the German botanist Carl Sprenger (1846-1917), famous for creating numerous Yucca hybrids, who in 1907 became the supervisor of the Kaiser's gardens at the Achilleion Palace in Eastern Corfu.
With the group back on the main road, and turning inland, they were joined briefly by two buzzards seen and heard flying high above road. Headed uphill onto dirt track, the group passed a field of very healthy globe artichoke plants with trickle irrigation, before reaching the Analypsi (Ascension) church - box-like, and locked as usual for churches in the area. The walkers rested in the welcome shade of church for 10 minute break, while a cluster of chattering Greeks sat nearby outside the rural doctor's surgery.
Heading off into semi-agricultural valley behind Agios Stefanos, the group gathered a few fallen walnuts from the large trees here. A small squashed snake on the road proved difficult to identify - already wasps were cutting it up and carting it away. Turning from the road onto a overgrown dirt track, and expecting to thereby avoid any passing traffic, leader Lance produced some secateurs in order to remove inconvenient bamboo-like reed stems that hung right across the track ahead. However, before reaching them, he was surprised to be passed by a Swiss estate car, which mowed its way through the half-metre vegetation on the track itself and snapped off all the numerous overhanging reeds.
Turning off onto a narrow path, the group entered streamside woodland under towering poplar trees. Anticipating that here at least they would be free from traffic, they descended into a first, dry streambed by steps carefully cut out of the hard earth and climbed out of the far side by a similar method. Nearby were a number of pink autumn cyclamen flowers. A second, deeper, dry streambed was crossed by longer earth stairways, to emerge at a field margin under a dead, partly collapsed tree branch. David volunteered to remove it by bending it back until it snapped off but then found himself trapped behind it. The group headed across a closely mowed field but were distracted by a pristine swallowtail butterfly that was laying its eggs, perhaps unwisely, on the mowed off remnants of the caterpillar foodplant, fennel. A field of purple and violet flowering lucerne (alfalfa for our American readers), presumably intended as a fodder/forage crop, was proving popular with a variety of other butterflies including clouded yellows and blues.
Passing the huge North Corfu laundry, with its giant chimney puffing smoke and hints of hydrogen sulphide wafting from its water outlet, the group headed through the pretty hamlet of Staoussa, a row of mostly single story houses with colourful gardens. At a stream bridge - the same stream that was dry further inland, but with some rather murky water here, a family of terrapins were watched as they crowded on a small area of exposed mudbank.
Entering Agios Stefanos, the group headed through town - passing a large number of shirtless middle-aged Englishmen competing for who could display the largest, flabbiest, moobies - then down to the beach, crowded with parked cars and parked sunbathers on this hot day. Picnic was taken at the end of the beach, on some conveniently shaded rocks overlooking the beach and the dramatic cliffs beyond. Surprisingly, growing on the rock faces just a couple of metres above the sea, were plants of the normally rather fussy maidenhair fern.
After lunch and a visit to the resorts small, namesake church, which was, unusually for NW Corfu, open, the group repaired to the hospitable Golden Beach taverna for drinks, accompanied, as anywhere this autumn, by a number of wasps enthusiastic to share these with us. Meriel proved to be a crack shot with a copy of the Marengo plant-list, demonstrating wasp-swatting as an unexpected additional use for these useful little tomes. the weather was hot, so the refreshments of choice were beers or frappés (whizzed iced coffees).
From the café, a brief climb took the group up into some semi-natural maquis vegetation, with more cyclamen and a variety of native evergreen shrubs, including strawberry trees, tree heather and climbing evergreen rose. Ripe fruit on the strawberry trees were elusive, most of those seen being an unripe yellowy-orange. Spaces between the shrubs were filled with remnants of Posidonia (a vaguely seaweed-like marine plant) collected from the beach below after storm wash-ups, plus a few other beach plants simultaneously but inadvertently carried up the hillside.
At the top of the ridge, the gateway of a long-closed, precipitously-perched house was almost blocked by a large collection of abandoned mattresses, sofas etc, brought up there by someone who felt these were best placed somewhere for most visitors to the resort to see them. Just past the house was a tiny church surmounted by a large cross and containing messages referring to English people who had died while visiting the area. Some ripe strawberry tree strawberries were finally found but the group was reluctant to partake of the red, spheroidal fruit.
The return to Arillas was via a curving descent on an earth track with some dramatically collapsing mud edges perched above apparently unsuspecting sunbathers on sunloungers on the beach below. The group reassembled in the evening for a meal at the seafront Graziella taverna.
Day 2
0900am. The sky was covered with clouds as the group waited for first sighting of the bus that was to take them to Pagi village for the start of the second day's walk. A huge double-decker bus arrived at appointed hour, but turned out to be for a "Corfu Shopping" trip. It was followed by a much more convenient minibus with a cheerful young driver, who took the group over the ridge to Agios Georgios then up to Pagi - a name which means ice or rock depending on who you read. Neither substance was visible at the time of the group's arrival. The walk route went through narrow alleyways past a fabulous, decorated stone arch with a crest over the centre, and then a larger-arched entrance way with the keystone slipping alarmingly, beside an obviously once significant but now crumbling house. Not wishing to press their luck, the group moved away promptly from the unstable architecture. Across the road was the second of the village's cemetery churches, this one with a collapsed roof and cemetery, before the group reached the third church.
David was told off for commenting audibly on the clearly failing olfactory state of the drains underneath the church entrance, but the group's attention was soon distracted by more flowering cyclamen as the group headed up into countryside. Some olives groves were partly overgrown with brambles, others were neatly weed-free and with their black netting arrayed. The leader pointed out flowering plants of violet larkspur, which, misheard as violent larkspur, caused some confusion and probably more interest than they otherwise would.
The higher village of Prinylas, whose name means neither ice nor rock, has benefited from new, EU-funded, paving of its narrow streets, but the remnants of a small, well-scavenged, overturned van caused greater interest among the more mechanically minded members of group.
The group followed a winding, uphill route through increasingly natural woodland - with some spectacular, flowering Campanula versicolor on an exposed cliff-face - a route which, with increasing altitude, merged into maquis and rain. The latter was more heavy by the time the group arrived at the panoramic viewpoint - one of the best in north Corfu - at the same time as a group of motorcyclists. Spread out below was a damp, undulating landscape, with some inland valleys full of mist or possibly smoke. Under the influence of the weather, the group sped up and headed down into the Helidoni bowl, an area of viticulture. An isolated wine stall with an overhanging roof provided some shelter from the downpour, with the usually (over)enthusiastic wine stall owner realizing that the group were English walkers sheltering from rain and therefore unlikely to buy anything. Shortly after, a group of four German walkers (three optimists without any raingear, and one fully-wrapped pessimist) arrived, heading straight for the stall and free samples of the wine, before continuing on their cheery way.
The decision was made to cut short some path sections of the planned route and consequently Vistonas village was bypassed for the more direct road route down to Makrades. Even the normally excessively persistent wine-sellers on the Makrades ring road preferred staying dry to employing their usual harassing tactics - which sometimes included the roll-the-old-lady-in-the-wheelchair-into-the-road technique to slow down passing hire-cars. The group whizzed past, unmolested, and then on up to Krini village, for a not entirely successful café stop though this did provide welcome shelter from the rain for an hour and a half. Most of the group had straightforward Nescafés or beers, but Alan provided more entertainment value by ordering a cappuccino from the fairly elderly Greek man who was single-handedly doing the catering.
Continuing with the walk in mid afternoon, as the rain died down to a piddle, the group headed down what had until recently been an attractive walled path - but was now a broad, boring, concrete-surfaced road - towards the Krini-Agios Georgios kalderimi. (A kalderimi is an old, stone-paved path.) En route, part of the group rather naughtily got ahead of the leader and thereby missed an opportunity to see the first autumn-squill flowers of the week - some hundred of these small bulbous plants with pinky violet-blue flowers. Suitably chastened shortly afterwards, they attentatively examined the botanically-interesting cliffs on which the kalderimi makes its dramatically sweeping descent.
These cliff plants included Ephedra, a shrub that is halfway between flowering plants and conifers, looks like a horsetail, and was the original source of the drug ephedrine. The latter has now been replaced by pseudoephedrine as found in, until recently, Sudafed and Lemsip, but now replaced by less efficacious substances since ephedrine and pseudoephedrine can (apparently) be converted into crystal meth. The group looked, hopefully, for yellow crocuses but there was no sign of flowering Sternbergia - or any other sort of Sternbergia. There were some of the curious earthstar fungi alongside.
As the group reached the bottom of the kalderimi, the gentle rain began again and followed them along the dirt track through olive groves. At the end of track, there was a descent on the original semi-paved path through tall, wet, reedy-grass, before a clear section that ended in an unpaved mudslide which proved a little too slippery for some of the group. With some bruised dignity, the group reassembled and headed along the final track to Agios Georgios, meeting the awaiting minibus exactly at the appointed time, promptly enough for an impromptu photostop by some spectacular flowering sea daffodils on the return route.
Day 3.
0900am. A cloud but dry start. The group headed inland on foot, turning up towards the Analypsi church, but then joining a dirt track along the northern side of the Arillas valley, passing vegetable plots and then through a small hamlet at the eastern end. A local was taking a goat for a walk on a lead, and a flock of sheep watched the group expectantly (but were disappointed). Near a large parked lorry, David spotted a flowering Colchicum that had been missed by the group leader. A short distance further, there was an unexpectedly lush colony of bulrushes (in a dry landscape), by a small road-roller that had obviously been used for working on surfacing this little-used section of road. The group felt the effort might have been rather better expended on the notoriously badly-surfaced main roads.
Heading more steeply uphill, the group found small but luscious black wild grapes dangling from the out-of-reach heights of a tall olive tree. Sue ingeniously managed to access a bunch which was enjoyed by the group. Shortly after the group reached the existing asphalt road which was in urgent need of repair but obviously not going to get any.
Entering Kavadades village, the group headed into the friendly café which is in fact the local general store, an old-fashioned square room, with the walls lined from floor-to ceiling with shelves to display the goods, and some central café chairs and tables. The Christmas decorations were up, although it wasn't clear whether this were leftover from 2007 or early for 2008. The lady owner took our refreshment orders, and her husband used an electric stirrer to prepare some frappés. He then reached up to a high shelf, where electrical items were on sale, and took down a hair-dryer. As he removed it from its box, the group began to speculate on what exotic coffee Alan might have ordered that necessitated this particular item of equipment for its production.
Moving on down through the village, a large, elaborate gateway bore hints of Greek Orthodoxy, as did a souped-up tractor parked outside. An attractive Oriental (kaki) persimmon tree, at the foot of the village, had a good crop of maturing orange fruit. Anyone in the UK who's been disappointed by these (chemically ripened and marketed under the name sharon-fruit), should try a fresh, naturally ripened one. Beyond the persimmon, was the large olive press building, and then an even larger alcohol distribution store - where the group was surprised to notice that a number of the crates with full bottles were stacked, completely unsecured, out beside the public road. A sour-faced Greek woman - possibly their security director - came out to look the group up and down and flick her fag-ash in their direction.
Moving on into neighbouring Armenades village, the contrast was noted between the neighbourhood's rather run-down ambience when compared with Kavadades. The first house could only be recognized as the one-time petrol station by a very faded Fina plaque on the overgrown front wall. The trees planted at the first bend of the road, Persian Lilac - also known as Indian bead tree from its white, bead-like fruit, not to be confused with the totally dissimilar Indian bean tree - provided a mini-quiz as to what plant family it came from. The answer, guessed by no-one in the group, is the mahogany family, Meliaceae. The village office, around the next corner, sported a pile of scattered files, missing doors and an old Christmas tree. The hilltop main church courtyard was something of a disappointment, not because of the lack of views (they're screened by the cypress trees around it), but by being overdecorated with the contents of someone's dog's exceptionally capacious bowels.
Heading back down into the valley, and with hints of imminent rain, the group saw free-range turkeys and then a field of sheep demonstrating the use of lucerne (still alfalfa for our American readers) as a forage crop. A little further, and the dirt track led through an area of numerous, chained, tiresomely barking dogs guarding - as usual in Greece - nothing in particular.
After crossing the main road, the group headed along a broad, partly shaded dirt track, through attractive woodland with swathes of flowering cyclamen, as well as hellebores and fruiting pyracantha. Tall elms and poplars were draped with curtains of (apparently) wild grapes, while high up on the hillside to the left was what was possibly the perfect cypress tree, an upright, immaculate column of green with ideal proportions. In a more open area, an old, abandoned ruin of a house, provided a photo-opportunity with colourful Sternbergias - yellow crocuses - in full flamboyant flower along the base of its north-facing wall. Sternbergias are famously a difficult plant to flower successfully when cultivated in Britain - with the horticulturalists usually recommending as much sun and heat as possible, rather than the sort of permanently-shaded position that was obviously ideal here. Also flowering nearby was white Clematis flammula.
The next section of dirt track provided two new and unidentified species of Galium (bedstraw), plus glimpses of a speeding slow-worm, and views of four buzzards and an eagle. Returning to olive groves, an overgrown side-track took the group up onto the ridge and to a well and the remnants of a now-collapsed but unidentifiable structure with tall concrete uprights and a pile of smashed fallen tiles. Rejoining a large surfaced road then a smaller, uphill but still surfaced road, there were some complaints about the amount of asphalt surface and its uphillness, with few in the group entirely believing the leader's assurances that this was more or less the last uphill of the day. There was a false alarm as a distant group of mass colchicums turned out to be yet more cyclamen.
After passing a very rural rural-doctor's surgery, a short almost invisible path led through to the top of Kavadades and a possible future picnic site where the group without bidding sat en masse on a low retaining wall with views out over the valley which was now bathed in warm sunshine. A descent towards Arillas along the outward newly-surfaced track, with opportunities for photography of the Colchicum, brought the group to a parting of the ways as members headed towards their respective accommodations for a shower, or towards Graziella for post-walk beers.
Day 4.
MORE TO COME...
Lance Chilton and Marengo 2012
Marengo, 17 Bernard Crescent, Hunstanton PE36 6ER, England