Corfu, Greece

July 4 and 5 were a crazy couple of days travelling to Corfu, a Greek island. We drove from Salzburg to Rome all Saturday, took an overnight train to Brindisi in Italy, caught a ferry to Corfu and then a van to Agios Gordios, the town we stayed in on the island. We survived it all, but the train was pretty revolting: stinking hot, dirty, noisy, cramped and artificially lit throughout the night. We got some sleep, but what with the long stops where our compartment heated up, the smoker, the dog, the baby and the French horn player… seriously, Italian trains! Let’s just say we really appreciated a shower and bed when we got to our excellent apartment on Corfu. We spent the next 3 days basically hanging out at the beach – it was beautifully hot! We had all our meals on our patio, and played cards and read there during siesta and into the night. We had lots of fetta cheese, gyros (their name for souvlakis, except with fries inside too – Ari would love them!), huge Greek donuts and lemon juice (yep, as a drink on its own – actually really good!). We speak no Greek, and still don’t even after 3 days there, which is a bit shameful. The worst thing about Greece are the toilet customs – you don’t want to know. Also, despite scrupulously making sure I was in the shade of the umbrella the whole time we were at the beach, one day I got badly sunburnt. Still red and peeling. Would have been great to spend more time chilling out in Greece, especially since we had to repeat the whole huge travelling thing. We took a taxi then a ferry to Italy, spent plenty of waiting time in Brindisi, caught another overnight train, flew from Rome to London, stayed a night in a dodgy London hotel, then took the Eurostar to Paris the next morning. That’s 2½ days travelling. With plenty of time to kill in between each stage. At least, thankfully, we had upgraded the overnight train to 1^st class, which was amazing! We had horizontal beds with doonas, air con, control of light and noise, and complimentary hand towels, water and soap! Sure made a difference.