An old wall and a garden at the heart of the town

  The modern part of Corfu Town looks like any other provincial town of the mainland Greece. It is full of those cheap and nasty 50s-60s apartment blocks which offended the landscape of many greek towns. During those year many beautiful old buildings were torn down to make way for those awful blocks.

   Hopefully, there are some survivors which remind us how the area looked half a century ago. One example is that old wall and garden at Linou Kogevina street, near Sarocco square. The garden has two orange trees which when blossomed, they produce a very pleasant smell.

  Looking at the right side of the wall we can notice an window filled with stone bricks. I suspect that this part of the wall belonged actually to a building which is long gone now. 

  The left side, was built with local stone. Most of the old buildings found in the oldest part of Corfu Town have been built using this type of stone.

Few images from Kontogialos beach - one of the cleanest and most popular

  Among the most popular beaches in Corfu is Kontogialos, or Pelekas beach. It is very close to Pelekas village, which is actually situated uphill. It is a beach certified with the "blue flag", which suggest that the water is clean and pure. It has a big hotel at its southern end and some tavernas scattered along its width. It deserves a visit and it is an alternative to the busiest neighbour, Glyfada beach, which can be very crowded and noisy.

Panorama under the palm tree

Panorama towards the north

Panorama towards the south

Flags - the greek, the municipal, the european and the "blue" flag

A row of terraced houses off Alexandras Avenue

  Alexandras Avenue is one of the most important throughfares in Corfu Town. It looks like a Parisian Haussmann boulevard with the trees and its wide pavements. It is lined mostly with apartment blocks but some old buildings survive scattered around their modern neighbours, suggesting that the Avenue someday was a neighbourhood of the noble ones.
  One of those is a row of terraced houses near the Sarocco square end which maybe be over a hundred years old. It used to house nannies. Those days, the area was far from the then centre of the town and extensive fields could be found around (the last of those survived till the early 90s when the "Gualinos Pyrgos" building was built).

  These terraced houses look like those found in british towns. They form a row of three identical middle sized townhouses with garden/parking at their entrance.

  A well can be found next to the entrance of one them!

  Some lemon trees decorate the "gardens" at the front of their entrances.

                                   

  The back side of the buildings face the narrow and somewhat deprivated Linou Kogevina street. The first floor walls are vandalized with distasteful graffities made by some stupid P.A.O. fans, who probably don't respect the other people's property and ignore the local history. 

Manholes in Corfu Town

  You probably remember those 80s comics series called "Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles" in which the anthropomorfic turtle heroes emerged from some NYC manholes (which were supposed to lead to the turtles' house): that was my first recollection of a manhole, a important but ofter overlooked detail of the urban enviroment. 

  Their use is to provide access to the sewage, telecommunications, electricity and water systems. For some, they are the entrances to an unknown undiscovered and daring underworld. Some are linked to the subway system or others with the ancient vaults and tunnels that were used for defensive proposes. Some also carry masonic or other mysticistic signs, like the swastika or "the square and the compasses". There are many explanations and theories about those "out of place" signs but most of them deal with conspiracy theories.

  In Corfu Town there are plenty of them. They could be found very easily as they appear almost on every road or pavement. Many of them bear some acronyms like "YK" ("Corfiot water company"), ΔΕΗ ("Communal Electric Company") and "ΔΚ" ("Muncipality of Corfu"). Others bear the name of the factory that they were made or just bear cosmetic symbols.

Marasli and Zafeiropoulou junction- no less than 6 manholes could be counted!

A photographic anthology of some manholes found scrathered on Corfu streets surface

  Now let's propose you  a little game  that can be played on your own or in a team; For those who live in Corfu; next time that you go out for a walkm look down and try to spot every of the twenty four manholes depicted above. If you spot them all, then you will be considered a descent urban explorer!

Issos beach revisited: A beach which never ceases to amaze me

  I've visited Issos (map) for the first time last summer. It is an unique beach which looks like an african one because of the presence of sand dunes and the lack of touristic development. This summer I went there again and it was magical as it was last year: crystal waters, miles of sandy beach, nice mix of people and spots where you can swim alone (and nude!).
 This time I took my digital camera with me to take some better quality photos. Here are some of them:

Miles of sandy beach 

Africa or Far West?

A no man's land

From the top of those sand dunes you can have a great view

Issos can be busy sometimes

View from the top of a sand dune (towards south)

Agios Georgios Argiradon village as seen from Issos

Issos beach bar - the only place where you can get a refreshment!

View towards the southern end of Lake Korission

A kinda artistic photo - sand dunes peak and a boatman's house in Limni Korission  at the back

View towards north

Afternoon in Issos

A jungle of blue-white ombrellas as seen from the dunes

Keep this magical place clean!

There are wooden paths as well - man, that burning sand can harm your feet!