One Night In Corfu, One Night In Corfu

I’ve always lumped Corfu in with the likes of Magaluf and Faliraki.

It is an island that I would likely never have visited were it not for the requirement to get the ferry to my end destination, Ksamil in Albania, from Corfu. Whilst I could have arrived early and gone straight to the ferry to go to Albania, I decided to be a bit more leisurely and have an evening in Corfu Town itself.

My Airbnb was top notch, in terms of affordability, location and charm. I could quite happily have stayed there longer, and even more important, it was just a few minutes walk to the nearest M&S. Who knew my employer had a store in Corfu? Apparently we have stores in Kuwait too.

One of my main desires for this holiday was to see the sea, so I headed straight for the nearest coastline – there wasn’t much in the way of bars but I found one just in time for sunset, and had a pretty crap beer – Mythos. Alas, my sunset photo seems to have disappeared from my phone memory – or maybe my memory has a hole instead. Another hole. Yet another hole.

After another crap beer – Mythos again, I assume, I took to Google to search for “craft beer”. I didn’t expect much, but I found a place called Firi Firi, nestled on the side of a stepped hill. They had a fair selection of interesting beers, IPAs, craft lagers – I cannot remember what I had, but it was a very tasty IPA. At pretty much London prices, but you get what you pay for.

Then after some deliberation I decided upon where to eat, a highly-recommended restaurant called Abakas Mezedopoleio. I fell in love with the charm of the Greek waitresses, the food, the wine and the stray cats – apparently they don’t go near people unless they trust them. I guess my lack of scruffy blonde hair helps.

Apart from the odd cat foot landing on my willy, they were rather charming. Though possibly only after one thing.

The food and wine – especially the wine, was top notch too. I think I over-ordered, it was a struggle to finish it all, and perhaps I could have had something more imaginative than pork skewers, but from memory it was either the waitress’ recommendation or someone else’s, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Somehow I was there 3 hours. Despite being by myself.

The next morning I didn’t have that much time, but enough for a wander and some brunch. I had a fairly early morning beer – super-tasty though rather expensive – apparently it won some competition for the best beer in the world. Who am I to disagree, it was good.

Enough time to have brunch too, a rather gorgeous Eggs Benedict at a modern European bistro, My Habit.

The ferry to Saranda (Albania) said last check-in was an hour before, so I headed to the port well in advance of that. And with no signs and limited staff, I sat around for 1.5 hours wondering why the hell I turn up so early to these kind of things. Until suddenly – ferry here, lets go.

Time for a beer, in the sun, wind in my hair, watching the sea go by. Bliss.

Of course, my one night there doesn’t prove whether I was unfair to consider Corfu in the same bracket as Magaluf, but some quality craft beer, a gorgeous meal and views of a castle gave a much better impression.

Only downside was that the queue for security at the airport on the way home was an hour long – I am so thankful on my insistence on getting to these kind of things so early.

Otherwise, reasonably charmed.