| Glenn's Corfu Journals 5-3-02 Today was our day to check out of the Pink Palace and catch the night bus to Athens. Our choices included the 1:45 pm or the 7:45 pm bus to Athens. We opted for the 7:45 bus that would get us to Athens around 5:00 am the next morning. In the mean time we showered, had breakfast, and checked out. The Pink Palace provided a place to leave our bags and even shower later that day prior to our departure. Once we had completed all of our basic chores we headed to the beach to spend our last day relaxing and getting our last bit of Corfu sun. We spent almost 4 hours at the beach and decided that we had probably had enough sun by then. We went back to the Pink Palace, showered, and went back into town to enjoy a nice late afternoon meal prior to our departure. (We weren't sure when our next meal would be.) We made it back to the hostel around 4:30 pm, played some backgammon and checkers while we waited for our ride into Corfu town, where we would pick up the bus. We were told that one of the ladies from the hostel would be going into town around 5:30 pm or the local bus would go around 6:00 pm. We checked in with the desk clerk and she confirmed that someone would be going into town around her usual 5:30 pm. Well, I checked again around 5:50 pm., so as not to miss the 6:00 pm. local bus and was then informed that 1) the local buses were not running today due to the Easter weekend and 2) that the young lady that usually goes into town was not going today. To say the least we were not too pleased with the change in story, but they were more than willing to call a taxi for us. We let them know that we were displeased with the performance and would not be back anytime soon. The taxi showed up a few minutes later, took us into town to the bus station, and dropped us off. The taxi driver was actually very nice as he told us a little about Corfu and it's history. Upon arrival at the bus station we had to verify and purchase tickets for that nights bus. Upon completing this task we headed into town to get some food for the long bus trip ahead. The bus left promptly at 8:00 pm (Oh yeah, it was due to leave at 7:45 pm!!!) We made one stop to purchase our ferry passes to take the ferry from Corfu to Igoumenitsa and off we were. The first stop was the ferry where we had to get off the bus and transfer to the ferry. We arrived in Igoumenitsa around 10:30 pm and got back on the bus for the long ride ahead. I forgot about all the stops a bus can take during an overnight trip. In the first hour we stopped 3 different times to let people off. At 11:30 pm we had to stop for 45 minutes for a dinner break. At 1:30 am we stopped for another transfer to a ferry and approximately 30 minutes later we transferred back to the bus for the final leg of our journey. I finally got to sleep around 2:30 am and was awakened around 5:00 am when we arrived in to Athens. We departed the bus and headed off to find our way to an Inn that we had read about in our Greece book. |
 |
| A fond farewell to Corfu |