Reviews of Greece

My parents said I should get away for a bit after exams, and I had discussed this with some mates beforehand, but I decided I could not afford it, and thought I would just work throughout the summer until my parents felt sorry for me and said if I found the spending they would pay for the holiday as an early Xmas/birthday present.

So, I booked a week in Corfu for myself and two other mates, starting on the 9th of July 2001, costing £281 each, in a self catering apartment, booked sometime in February. This was with Greek Tourism Travel, who work on behalf of Golden Sun Holidays and we flew with JMC airways.

Anyway, flying from Gatwick, the flight was about two and a half hours there, arriving in the islands only airport situated in the north-eastern part of the island, near Corfu Town. From the airport it took us about fifty minutes to get to our apartment in St. George via a nicely air-conditioned coach.

That was the starter, now the main course:

Corfu is seen as a young persons island because of the nightlife culture image that it has gained over the years, and admittedly this was one aspect that attracted us to the Greek island. However, because the island is dominated by one place for nightlife, Kavos/Cavos, of this kind, other places have bars and clubs that will not have thousands of drunken fools flowing out of them. This means that people of all ages can go, just make sure you know where you are going so you do not get caught-up in the yob-culture, or as you may inclined to call it, the kn*b-culture.

Corfu, like all the other Greek islands has a poor water system, probably because it is so hot, and the protein enriched water would not be good for us to drink. This means that bottled water must be bought to drink, and is well worth doing because it does taste refreshingly good when you take it out the fridge. Bottled water is cheap, and can cost anything from 100 Greek Drachma (less than 20p) (about 550 Greek Drachma to the pound) per half litre bottle. The hot water is solar powered (a great idea) but this means that hot water is scarce until early afternoon (unless few are using hot water in the morning) but with it being so hot (reaching up to forty degrees Celsius) cold showers are a must, and we usually felt hot in the apartment after a cold shower! The other thing as it were about Corfu is that the sewage system is not very developed so much so that, you will find a small bin next to the toilet where you deposit your…. You know, not your faeces, but the toilet paper you use after evacuating your bowels. Talking of evacuation, some apartments do not have bathroom windows, so getting out the bathroom quickly was usually essential!

As I said, Corfu is a hot place, and you will need to slap on the sunscreen all the time. I remember walking out the apartment about 10:00 one morning, and just feeling my skin burning within five minutes. To be honest, this is when you are likely to burn. When you go onto the beach, the trip is usually started with rubbing in the sun tan lotion and so you are safe, but all those ten minute walks to the local shops will build up if you are not careful. At least a factor twenty-five to those untanned parts of the body. I was safe with a factor ten on my legs and fore-arms as I had a tan from England. (It is possible!)

Mosquitoes or Mossies as we called them at the start were everywhere really. I called them Mossies in a nice tone as I just did not get bitten for the first couple of days whilst the other two did. By the end I was calling them f*cking things, f*cking b*ggers, little sh*ts, little t*ssers and biting w*nkers I am sure there were more! Seriously, wear repellent and take something to help relieve the bites. Two products which did this for us cost less than a fiver from Boots, and was well worth it. The after-sting cream made the bite swell and burst causing the puss to come out the area is that the only way?!

St. George can be located in the south west part of the island, (where we stayed) and there are other St. Georges in Corfu (three others I think) but this is the main St. George. The town is situated right on the coast, and has one road that runs through it which is right next to the beach, with roads coming off this road going inland, but not going to anywhere else apart from the country. Basically, St. George is along one road, and that is it! On this road you will find many pubs restaurants and shops. The shops are basically all small shopping markets which will provide you with breakfast and lunch food at reasonable prices. The prices of food from these shops are generally cheaper then here in England, and you will find that everything is local produced.

The restaurants are also priced extremely reasonably. I think the most expensive meal we had between the three of us came to 8,000 Greek Drachma which is about fifteen pounds Sterling. That meal had dogfish in it as well as a steak so it is very cheap to eat out, and I recommend you do so every night, not just because you are on holiday and you should not cook, but it is probably cheaper than buying the food and cooking it yourself.

The bars are great. They do not seem to get many people in them before about ten oclock (when we usually went out) and the prices are good. The Karma Bar and Oh La La are next door to each other, and seemed to attract the most amount of people, especially as happy hour(s) was from nine to midnight. The bars will offer you beer, but most opted for cocktails. These were priced at 1000 Greek Drachma in happy hour and at 1500 Greek Drachma outside of happy hour. The most popular to drink was Sex On The Beach (hence the title) and Sex In The Air/Clouds. These were the two safe drinks as it were, as everyone liked them. Others such as White Russian and Green Dragon were not to everyone’s liking. There are many to try and are all made promptly in the bar while you wait. It is very easy to spend a lot of Greek Drachma, but little Sterling, and get very drunk very quickly! The bars are open to about four oclock in the morning, so beware of noise if you go home beforehand. I think we stayed out most nights (apart from the last couple when I found myself a female friend) until the early hours.

We stayed in Jimmis Apartments which were great. The place was meant for four people, but with only three of us we had an extra bed and extra room for us to p*ss about in. Most of the apartments seemed to be for two people, and so did not have two front doors like us, or two doors onto the balcony which was nice and big. Being in Corfu makes life simple. The cooking (if any) is done on two hobs, and it was mainly pasta that was cooked, taken over from England. You will not find a kettle in any apartments, and so the hobs are used for heating any water for any tea or coffee made. The bathroom is a strange situation. As I said, there is the little bin for the used toilet paper which, if you do not use, (i.e. you put the paper down the toilet) you may experience blowback which I think you can guess as to the definition! In the bathroom there is also a stool in there which we did not have a Scooby about what that was for! Basically, it is for the shower you put the stool in the shower, wet yourself OK, you remove your clothes first then wet yourself with the shower head, and get yourself as wet as possible. Then wash, then rinse yourself down, still sitting on the stool. This is done because of the lack of shower curtain in most apartments. We were fortunate enough to have one, but it was too short, and the floor still got soaked! We did not use the stool, I would advise just pointing the shower heard towards you in a way that if you miss it hits the wall.

You will not find any bathroom towels in most apartments, only small hand towels (don’t know why!!) which were used to mop up the bathroom mess - something we were told not to do but forgot - so take your own bathroom towel, and one for the beach too.

The beach was about a two minute walk from our apartments in one direction which was obviously great. I cannot remember the name of the beach, but translated it means maybe, and basically, if you think about the beach as a normal beach at one end, and a nudist beach at the other, the further you walk along the beach the more it gets towards a nudist beach. We did not actually walk that far along the beach, so I cannot confirm this! There was another great looking beach in the other direction, about a twenty minute walk from where we were staying.

On the beach there are many sun-lounges which were for hire, apparently costing £3 per day. There is a beady-eyed bloke who walks up and down the beach asking for cash from you! Going there at night is really nice though. Free sun-lounges, (the beady eyed bloke has to sleep!) a nice cooling temperature, a lovely sounding sea, and good company if you are lucky. I went to the beach at night a few times with different company, and you can either just chat, just lounge, other things or just fall asleep make sure you are with people who will wake you up though! - The beady eyed man is up early!

To be honest, that was what there was to do in St. George, just go to the beach. There were water activities such as jet-skiing and what is it called? When you are attached to an open parachute, attached to a speed-boat and then pulled along paragliding? You can do that too! Prices seemed a tad expensive though.

At our welcome meeting we were given a selection of different activities etc. that we could do throughout the week, but not wanting to do too much and get tied down, we opted for just two of them. The activities on offer and prices (and the companies conversions) are below:
Corfu By Coach: Coach trip to the capital, Kerkyra, for a shopping trip. Leave at 16:00, back at 21:00. 4000 Greek Drachma, about £7.00.
Greek Night: At Gloupos, this is a traditional Greek meal and celebration. 12000 Greek Drachma, about £21.00.
Grand Island Tour: Coach tour of many places around the island with a guide and stops. 10400 Greek Drachma, about £19.00.
One Day Cruise: Cruise to Parga on the mainland and the Island Paxos before an evening return. 10900 Greek Drachma, about £20.00.
Paxos, AntiPaxos and Caves: Swim, shopping and sight-seeing trip. 7000 Greek Drachma, about £12.00.

Scuba Diving: With professional diving instructors, for both experienced and amateur swimmers. 14000 Greek Drachma, about £25.00. I knew people who went on this trip, and they both said it was a bit scary, but amateurs can only go down six metres so she said it wasn’t too bad! Experienced divers can go down about twenty metres, but do take any certificates you have. Recommended.

Aqualand: Loads of pools and slides for all the family with lounges, lockers etc. 9000 Greek Drachma, about £16.00. I went on this, but I must say, get a good nights sleep beforehand. I was out until half five, and although it was a great night, (I think!) the trip to Aqualand the next day (getting up three hours after going to bed!) was a struggle as I had been drinking you have been warned! But it was a good day, thoroughly enjoyed the slides, but not the wedgies!!

Sandstorm Beach Party: On K/Cavos beach with a London DJ and great dancers. 12000 Greek Drachma , about £21.00. Although we had a delayed arrival, and the drinks were expensive, we said sod it and got a bit drunk anyways, and without the alcohol, dancing and socialising would have been harder to do so drink! A good night when things got swinging, and you are likely to meet loads of people. This is the night us three met another group of twenty-one from Leeds, our age, and we were friends (or more) for the rest of the holiday, and this is always likely to happen on holiday as people are generally more sociable.

The above were arranged by our tour operator, but every place you stay at with a rep is likely to do these kind of activities, and I would recommend doing some, but do not tie yourself down too much.

Mesongi: We got a taxi here one night on recommendation, and we went to George and Frankies (I think) which was the recommended bar there. In the end we left quite early as the place was half dead, and taxi driver’s do not stay long. It cost us 5000 Greek Drachma to get to Mesongi from St. George (quite expensive for a fifteen minute trip) and another 5000 back. Basically, the taxi drivers all sod off (as it were) to Cavos/Kavos as that is where all the work is. I would not recommend going to Mesongi from anywhere else, but if your apartments are there, do not worry, there were a few people in the clubs.

Kavos/Cavos: Well, this is the main place on the island, and we did only go there once for the Sandstorm night. The drinks were nearly twice as much as those in St. George, and unless you are staying in C/Kavos, I would not go there more than once. It was going to cost us the equivalent of £40.00 to get there and back via taxi, and with more expensive drinks yeah. Although the clubs are large and often free to get into, the night will quickly get expensive. The yob-culture is more apparent here than anywhere else, with drunk idiots everywhere (according to our rep) and some drink-driving on scooters. Walking through the place we saw the stereotypical English yobs which made me cringe to think I was from the same country as them!

We were handed some prices for car hire at our arrival meeting, and I was considering hiring a car for a day if it was not too expensive. The prices started at 13000 Greek Drachma for a Fiat Panda for a day, and went up to 32000 Greek Drachma for a Fiat Multiplan (nine seater) for a day. The prices were slightly discounted for three or seven day hire, and did include full insurance, VAT, road map, delivery and collection, but after reviewing our drinking finances we decided not to. Mountain bikes and scooters were also for hire (sorry, did not see the prices) but we were advised against scooters. A couple of weeks beforehand, somebody on holiday had drunk-driven a scooter and killed a local girl not that we would drink drive, but we saw her point.

The buses run once a day, and did not seem very reliable on timing!

Taxis were a lot more expensive than estimated, only use them if you have no other alternative. The drivers are very loyal though, and if they pick you up from your hotel, they will take you to your destination and arrange to pick you up somewhere at a set time. This guarantees you a taxi, and so no worry about getting home.

This island has plenty to do if you go out and do it yourself, otherwise you may become an expert at some card games (like we now are!) during the day. The nightlife is good if there are a few of you, otherwise go to K/Cavos if you want some clubbing. If there are a lot of you, you will be able to have a laugh in local bars.

In a sentence Corfu is "A place for everybody with a lot to do if you have the money, just beware of mosquitos and the hot sun."