Report on guided walks week, Corfu, September 2004
WALKS WEEK 29 September to 3 October 2004
This week of five days of walks was based in Arillas, northwest Corfu.
The leaders Lance & Hilary travelled to Corfu several days before the start of the walks, arriving in the early hours of Saturday 25 September.
The Saturday was mostly sunny and warm, although there was a brief, heavy shower in the afternoon. Lance & Hilary had planned an early night, to catch up on sleep lost the night before, however later in the evening a huge thunderstorm started, over the sea just to the west of the resort. At 10 pm however the thunder was drowned out by the massively amplified music from the Kaloudis Village Hotel bar, which continued until just before midnight, after which the continuing thunder overhead was but a gentle lullaby.
In the morning, the sea had turned pale brown with the mud brought down by the river. Where the previous day the river had been completely dry where it crossed the coastal road, it was now an impassable, raging torrent. The adjacent footbridge had been swept off its base and was perched uselessly on the beach on the far side. Sunday was more or less entirely wet, Monday was mostly dry, but Tuesday brought more storms and torrential rain, with rain continuing almost until dawn on Wednesday.
Arillas, northwest Corfu
Arillas, and Akrotiri Arillas to the south
By the start of the first walk it was bright, sunny and warm. The group met on the Arillas seafront, near the jetty. Lance assured them the weather would be fine for the rest of the week, and the walk started around the backstreets of Arillas.
The leader pointed out annual amaranths ("vlita") being grown and - at-that-moment - harvested as a crop - a summer substitute for spinach - but the group was more interested in some semi-aquatic turkeys wading disconsolately in a flooded pen across the road. Fortunately, other English tourists had already leaped to the rescue and were digging a drainage channel under the fence to allow the flood waters to flood the road instead. The Greeks, naturally, do not use the name ‘Turkey' for these birds. Female turkeys are referred to as ‘French chickens' and male turkeys are named after native North American feather headdresses.
Next of interest after the turkeys, were some remarkably large yucca plants, trees over 10m tall, well-branched and with numerous large clusters of white flowers. The route then went on past several peoples' accommodations, on the back road of Arillas, and also past the tables and chairs of the Arillas festival party which had been abandoned during the earlier rainstorms.
Leaving the road, the group headed uphill on a dirt track that lead up to the ridge and to Arillas' largest, but quite well hidden, church, dedicated to the Analypsi ("Resurrection"). The church was locked, but the nearby public toilets, Arillas' largest (though quite well hidden), were not, so a few members of the group bravely availed themselves of the facilities. The less brave decided to wait for some shrubbery.
Passing a half-timbered house that looked more in keeping with Surrey countryside than the Arillas olive groves, the group descended from the cemetery along a sweeping side road to a junction where a nice colony of flowering, lilac-pink autumn crocuses caught the attention. After some photographs of the plants the group moved on, crossing a stream bridge and then rising to a cluster of houses at a road junction where some aggressive small dogs barked at the group. These white, curly-haired, yappy-snappy, short-legged dogs - somewhat resembling toilet-brushes without the handles - seem to be frequent feature of this part of the island, probably intended to control the local rat population (Corfu probably has the highest per-hectare rat population of any Greek island).
Passing more roadside crocuses, scattered through the brown tufts of dead grass, the group passed a large but mysterious, tall-chimneyed, vaguely crematorium-like factory, with no visible indication of the activity undertaken within. In fact, it was one of Northwest Greece's largest laundries, serving many of northern Corfu's numerous hotels.
After another row of small, rural houses, the group crossed the stream again and were in the outskirts of Agios Stefanos resort. The main drag did not impress the group, looking more like a small, midwestern States' town, with a surplus of gaudy signs, electricity poles and cables. They hurried on past the church of Agios Stefanos to the site of the old harbour, where they picnicked on the gravelly shoreline with a gorgeous panoramic view overlooking the Diapontia islands and the distant mountainous coastline of Albania. The grass around the picnic site was dotted with the flowers of pink cyclamen.
Agios Stefanos centre
Agios Stefanos picnic
After lunch the walk continued along the eastern side of the Akrotiri Kefali headland, to the modern harbour, for a look at the boats and views. Returning to the church - the only one the group found unlocked - we were invited to look inside by an elderly local. By the door was posted a couple of sheets of paper detailing the history of the area.
From the church the group headed quite steeply uphill, initially between tourist accommodations, but then out into countryside between maquis shrubs, including strawberry trees. The strawberry tree is named after its fruit, red when mature, with a rough surface, pleasant eating when fully ripe though tending to be slightly gritty (particularly when growing by a sandy track that has had torrential rain splashing up off it.), and some of the group sampled them. In Corsica, a liqueur is made from the fruit; in Greece, the shrubs are sometimes pruned back to encourage new shoots to feed the goats. The plants are very tolerant of burning and will sprout again even after being levelled to the ground in Greece's summer forest fires - where there are several years of fires, they can - with the opposition removed - become the predominant vegetation. Climbing over the strawberry trees were the barbed lianas and heart-shaped leaves of smilax, a relative of the North American plant from which root-beer, sarsaparilla, is made. Like the strawberry tree, you can see both the white flowers and the previous year's ripe fruit in the autumn.
At the top of the track, the group emerged by a lone house - partly boarded up, and possibly a victim of a refusal of post-construction planning permission - and a splendid view south and west over Arillas and Arillas bay. The western side of the ridge, unlike the comparatively gently sloping eastern, Agios Stefanos side, drops almost vertically away, nearly 70m, to a sea-level strip of beach. Below, at sea-level, naturist sunbathers risk falling rocks and sunburnt tender bits.
Akrotiri Kefali headland
walkers & artist on Akrotiri Kefali track
A small side track lead up to a small chapel, around which were flying pasha butterflies. These large insects have dark wings, with white margins and two swallowtails - they are Europe's heaviest butterfly - but also one of it strongest fliers. Here they were weaving purposefully above the strawberry tree shrubs on which they lay their eggs and on which the caterpillars feed.
A smaller, yellow, swallowtail butterfly landed on Pamela and was photographed by the group as it sat on her hand. Lance slipped in a promotional talk about his Norfolk Broads 2005 walks, which feature the only area in Britain to feature swallowtail butterflies. The British subspecies of swallowtail chose the very rare milk-fennel as its larval foodplant and is therefore itself very rare; the European subspecies chose the ubiquitous common fennel as its foodplant and is widespread.
Heading along the ridge-top track, the group reached the highest point, a small, isolated tourist villa, with remarkable views. The track continued, but now downhill, its final section into the northern end of Arillas having been partly eroded by the previous weekend's weather and left dangling a tad precariously over the sea. However, even the most vertiginously challenged members of the group made it back to Arillas without distress.
group on eroded Arillas track protected by crash-barrier
The second day's walk took the group southwards along the coast - fortunately the stream had now subsided so crossing it was possible. Beyond the stream, the group picked up a couple of members staying at the Bardis Sun Apartments, and then it was briskly uphill towards the Afionas ridge.
As so often when walking in Greece, the conversation took an unrelated turn and headed for the subject of British television gardening programme presenters. However, the group soon reached the start of Afionas and headed up into the village. From the main square, the group headed southwards to the Dionysos café-taverna with its panoramic views, over the bay of Agios Georgios which was to be the target of the 4th day's walk.
After a refreshments stop in the café, the group joined the stony path that meandered down the hillside and out onto the headland, finally passing through some fragments of ancient wall and arriving at the tiny twin beaches of Porto Timoni. The leftward beach looked out over the huge Agios Georgios bay and already had sunbathers on it, while the other beach faced north into the small Porto Timoni bay which just had a narrow opening on the Arillas side. The path continued on along the headland for another 10 minutes, to a small cave church, dedicated to Agios Stylianos - some of the group decided to visit before lunch, most of the rest to picnic immediately on the northern beach. Pam and Claire decided to head for the third, almost inaccessible beach, located on the far side of Porto Timoni bay. Undeterred by coming to the end of a path, they made their way onward over rocks and gullies to finally reach the far beach as most of the group finished their picnics.
Porto Timoni beaches
rock arch, Porto Timoni
En route to the Agios Stylianos cave church, the path crossed a narrowing of the headland, where down to the right, near sea-level was a spectacular rock arch, around which grew the rare local endemic sea lavender, Limonium arcuatum.
After lunch, and as the pre-arranged time for departure neared, most of the group congregated between the two beaches to watch Pam and Claire's distant return from the third beach. We knew they were lost when they started heading up the hillside, taking exaggerated steps through deep vegetation, but fortunately they realized their error and managed to locate their outward route.
The uphill return to Afionas, near the Dionysos taverna, took longer than the descent, with some brief rest stops for the group, but finally they were just below the terrace of the taverna. Swinging left, they headed past some spectacular tall white flower-spikes of sea squills (the only ones seen), and then some very small, violet-blue flowered autumn squills, before crossing a donkey-dropping encrusted field to reach the Iliovasilema (''sunset'') viewpoint overlooking Arillas bay and the Diapontia islands. Someone had kindly installed a row of bench seats for full appreciation of the views and the group took advantage of this. Lance inadvertently got into conversation with some German tourists who were also enjoying the view, but failed to understand a pun on the name of one of the islands and a famous German footballer.
panorama of islands from Iliovasilema viewpoint, Afionas
The Three Brothers was the first café reached after the viewpoint, and had even better views - of ice creams and beer. However Pam said she felt sick after a particularly large ice-cream and Gabriele found a mystery spherical object in hers. Undeterred the group set off downhill and out of the village, to cries of ‘'Oh I should have gone to the loo!'‘
The third day's walk started out over the stream again - now but a trickle - head southwards, but instead of taking the first right to Afionas, the group went second right, after Maria's shop. Halfway up the hill, they reached the entrance to the Arillas Heritage Trail [Unfortunately, the Heritage Trail has since closed (2008)]. It is a feature of the Greek countryside that it contains pieces of rusting abandoned machinery, and initially the Heritage Trail appeared just to be another example of this. However it is the work of a retired priest who has diligently collected any artefact that was about to be - or already had been - thrown out, and arranged it around several hectares of organically-run and kitten-infested hillside farmland. The first part of the display was a selection of motorized tricycles that attracted the more mechanically minded members of the group, although the more gardening-minded members of the group failed to notice them at all. Everyone was paying attention by the time we entered the old priest's-house museum, which was just as well, because some member of the local animal community had just crapped on the carpet. Downhill from the museum were pens with rabbits, sheep and chickens, and then crossing the stream, the group headed up to the olive press museum, outside which was a yard filled with more abandoned paraphernalia of Greek life. Beyond the yard was paddock of donkeys, while in the field below was a further selection of items including a circular staircase and an English registered Peugeot.
Priest's House Museum, Arillas Heritage Trail
Leaving the trail, the group rejoined the road, but then left it to cross the stream valley to the left - heading into the olive groves and finding more autumn crocuses. A steep, warm, uphill climb brought the group thirstily to the doors of the Mon Amour taverna on the outskirts of Kavadades. This is probably the most widely advertized taverna in northwest Corfu, with every corner of the road sporting a large advert suggesting a visit. The group would have gone in for drinks, but it was closed. Fortunately for us, the hospitable village shop also doubles up as a café and a very pleasant half an hour was spent there taking refreshments.
café shop in Kavadades
Leaving the village on its descending zigzag road, past the slightly mysterious entranceway with a great double-headed Orthodox eagle over it, we paused to admire a fruiting persimmon tree. The smooth-skinned orange fruit, tasty when fully ripe, inedibly sour when not, are available in British supermarkets under the strangely unappetizing marketing name of sharon fruit, but appear not to sell well since most are sold off cheap on the day of their expiry date. The successful British building company, Persimmon, clearly does not find this sort of pseudonym necessary.
Reaching Armenades, we walked along the track below the village, where there were some apple trees with curious, rather tubular-shaped apples (soon to be sold as tracy fruit...), plus kumquat trees. The latter are cultivated on Corfu for the production of some obscenely bright, orange products including liqueurs, a glass of which is sometimes a free gift at the end of taverna meals. The fruit resembles a golfball-sized orange, but inside is green and sour.
Heading up a muddy dirt-track - which used to be an attractive paved path before being bulldozed - we entered the back of the village and stopped in the church courtyard for our picnic lunch. Although situated at the top of a small hill, with potential pretty views all around, the views are completely screened from the courtyard by dense cypress trees. The church toilets were locked, but the tap and sink were accessible. Lance and Hilary sat in the shade by the church wall until a pigeon flew in to a ledge above, reversed, and scored a direct green hit on the handle of their trekking poles. The tap and sink came in useful. Just behind the church was the small primary school, its single classroom dominated by a large Coke machine.
Armenades church
After lunch, the group headed out of the village, past wooded banks dripping with pink cyclamen and with the faint communal scent of the flowers drifting down. At the top of the hill, the group crossed the ridge road to a hay meadow with good views down into the Agios Georgios valley. Pam was convinced that she had been there before, with Lance, but he denied this.
Leaving the ridge road on a descending concrete road, the road skirted an area of landslip, where the earth had slid down the hillside and was beginning to undermine the road itself. Locals had been battling to reverse this process by the unusual strategy of dumping large quantities of kitchen white goods over the parapet of the road (presumably before they could be collected by the retired priest of Arillas).
The fourth day's walk was to Agios Georgios, the next resort to the south, and started past the entrance to the Arillas Heritage Trail. Continuing uphill on the road, the group crossed the ridge, and then headed downhill on a dirt track that towards the end appeared to be fighting a losing battle with the local reedy grass. The exceptional rainstorms of the previous weekend had left a layer of deep, fresh mud and leaf debris over the stream crossing between the end of the track and the start of small, olive grove path. However some dead branches placed by the leaders across the quagmire enabled the group to cross unmuddied (more or less). A subsequent crossing of a larger - but wet rather than muddy - stream, was simplified by the amount of once-tall, now-stormflattened, streamside vegetation which acted as a natural bridge. The final section of shrub-lined path down to Agios Georgios beach proved the richest for vertebrate wildlife, with a number of young slow-worms and a tortoise.
Once at the beach, the group headed initially northwards to the Golden Moon café-taverna for drinks on the raised terrace, leaving a pile of muddy boots at the entrance to the taverna steps. Refreshments completed, the group headed southwards before making a short inland and uphill detour for views of the beautiful bay. Some then headed to the beach for their picnic lunches, others made for nearby tavernas, and some just headed to the beach for sunbathing.
Agios Georgios
After lunch, the group reassembled and followed a meandering track inland, past more autumn crocuses under the olive trees, swinging left and uphill to a low ridge and a broad dirt road. On the far side of the dirt road, an ancient path led down into the next valley, where the slopes were dotted with abandoned and ruined small houses. Smoke from prunings of the olives drifted amongst the branches. Undeterred by its name, butterflies fed on the flowers of stinking inula. The group admired a newly built house on the side of the valley, although they felt the access was a little steep. After a brief rest, they set off again and joined the ridge road, overlooking Agios Georgios to the south and Arillas to the north. This section of the ridge has - curiously, since it's over 100m above the sea, but perhaps in anticipation of global warming - a concentration of small boatyards. For the walkers it was downhill all the way from here, to Arillas.
boatyard above Arillas
The fifth and final day started with a minibus ride to the village of Pagi - which translates as ‘'ices'‘ or ‘'rocks'‘, depending on who you read. On a hot day in early October, the latter seemed more likely. Passing the shell of a church, the group arrived at the main church and then turned uphill on a small path past a spectacular clump of yellow autumn crocus. The winding road from Pagi to Prinylas is nearly 3km long, but the path between the two is about 800m, so a worthwhile short-cut.
Prinylas is an attractive small village, with narrow streets, some interesting carved doorways and some blue autumn delphiniums in flower at the time of the group's visit. However, time pressed, and they moved on - uphill on the long zigzag of almost empty road (with no short-cut available) through attractive natural woodland - to be rewarded at the top by one of the best views of north Corfu and further to the Albanian coastal mountains.
view of Agios Georgios from above Prinylas
The road led on, past an unconstructed building with its own crop of ripening self-sown tomatoes, then through the villages of Vístonas and Makrades. On the outskirts of the latter, in contrast to the normal cheerfully good-natured techniques of Greek salespersons, are some of the most gratuitously pushy, obnoxiously irritating, wine- and gift-sellers of anywhere in the country, and more reminiscent of a Thai resort such as Phuket. Forewarned, the group strode past, ignoring the proffered handshakes, and headed on for civilized Krini.
Around the corner from Krini, the fabulous 13th century castle of Angelokastro perched on a tower of limestone and overlooking the bays of Paleokastritsa. Accessed by a stone, stepped path, recently renovated, the battlemented summit rock platform has a small church and fabulous views down to the sea 1000ft below. Carved into the rock are some graves, now empty except for rainwater. On his previous visit with a group, Lance had discovered that one of the graves fitted him exactly - indicating that someone remarkably tall for mediaeval times had once been buried there.
Angelokastro
summit of Angelokastro
flooded stone grave, Angelokastro
Paleokastritsa from Angelokastro
relaxing at the Ippos cafe, Angelokastro
The return from the Angel's Castle avoided Makrades altogether, crossing the allotments of Krini to join a spectacular kalderimi that clung to the cliffs on the south side of Agios Georgios bay. More yellow autumn crocuses were seen, on the cliffs, as well as the beautiful deep blue, autumn flowering bellflower, Campanula versicolor. At the foot of the kalderími, the group headed into the olive groves and then to the shore at Agios Georgios, for their transport back to Arillas.
