| Erin's Corfu Journals 5-3-02 We decided to leave Corfu on Friday. One thing we noticed about the Pink Palace was that with each day we stayed, we liked the place less. Corfu itself was gorgeous, but we were noticing that the way the hotel was run is not very nice, for the community they live in or the clientele they serve. And after 3 days there, we'd pretty much done all the activities they had to offer that interested us, so it was time to move on. We arranged to take their shuttle service over to Corfu Town's bus terminal for our connection to Athens. During the morning, we had time to wander down to the beach again for a last look, and I kept covered up, as I'd burned myself a bit in the kayaking of the day before. It was a very laid back morning, and we got back early to be sure we made our shuttle. Around 5:30pm, we noticed that the shuttle hadn't arrived yet, and were slightly worried, as the last local bus would leave at 6pm and we didn't know where to catch it as a backup. But the front desk assured us that the shuttle was on its way, so we waited another 20 minutes before asking again. She then told us that the lady who drives the shuttle had decided not to drive in that evening, so we should find our own way into Corfu Town! It was by now too late to catch the local bus, and we were outraged to hear them calmly offer to call us a cab, at our expense of course! With no recourse, we took the cab, but both of us were livid at this abandonment. They could have at least sent someone from the staff to drive us over in one of their 15 rental cars, or offered to pay the cab fare, as it was their fault we'd waited too late!!! But they didn't. I wouldn't recommend Pink Palace to anyone who doesn't want a 24-hour booze binging party crew staffing their hotel and taking care of their arrangements! Anyway, with the cab we arrived in plenty of time at the Corfu Town bus station and found our way onto the bus to Athens. It was meant to leave Corfu around 8pm and arrive in Athens early the next morning, so we figured we'd get a night of sleep on the bus and arrive ready to explore Athens. Wrong again. The journey started out ok, with the bus taking us to the ferry terminal where we all bought ferry tickets. The bus then took us to the boat where we again got off and went on the boat while the bus drove on. This was a short trip of about an hour, with a nice sunset to see us off. At the other end, we waited for the bus to depart the ferry and then climbed in for the long trip. It was about 10pm when we set out through the winding mountain roads, and I had barely begun to nod off despite the swaying when we stopped for dinner at 11:30pm. With the peace and quiet offered by the few remaining passengers, we caught a short nap until everyone boarded again at 12:30am. After that, we got another few minutes sleep while driving through mountains, stopping occasionally to let off one or two people. At one point, the driver suddenly turned on the lights and began screaming over the intercom about something. Finally a couple of guys turned to the English-speaking guy in the row ahead of me and told him his shoe had fallen in the aisle and the driver wanted it out of there pronto. He kept up the screaming for about 5 minutes after the shoe was removed, and left the lights on for another 10 just for good measure. Around 2:30am, I was awakened by yet another stop, when most of the passengers got off the bus. Knowing we wouldn't be in Athens till around 5am, Glenn and I stayed on, curious about the number of people leaving the bus. Suddenly the driver was yelling at us in English to hurry up and get off, and we realized we were at another ferry! We hurriedly grabbed bags & shoes and ran on to the ferry, which promptly loaded the bus and took off. Both of us went up top for the short ride and grouched about the many interruptions of sleep and the driver's method of taking curves like he was attempting to do wheelies with the bus. After boarding the bus again, we left the 2nd ferry and hit a straight road toward Athens. I slept for the longest period that night, probably about an hour, before Glenn woke me in the Athens bus terminal at 5am. We grabbed our stuff and wandered about the bus station, trying to figure out where we wanted to go for a hotel and how to get there. |
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| It was hard to leave gorgeous Corfu! |