Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
Originally posted 8/29/25
I didn’t know anything about Corfu, maybe I read something in a book or watched a show on TV, but it didn’t ring a bell with me. It’s a Greek Island, and a wowser! We took a tour which we like to do sometimes, although Cowboy prefers people watching while drinking coffee and enjoying croissants. Too many people, he says, in his slow Montana drawl. The ship described the tour as taking a boat to look at caves. The boat part sounded good. The cave part was iffy, but being the good sports that we are, what the heck?
We took a bus from where we were to where we were going, and I really didn’t know the answers to either of those questions, and just for the record, I hate buses. I don’t know why, but I don’t enjoy riding a bus…but let’s put that in the past tense, because by the end of the excursion, changed my mind, at least for the trip we were on.
The bus trip to the cave area was spectacular. Olive and kumquat trees and a few succulents that might have belonged to the cactus family. Olive trees were everywhere, in orchards, planted in rows and free-standing along the sides of the roads. The trunks of the olive trees resembled vines, winding around, sort of, with big holes in them. You should check them out on Google, which will do a better job of describing them.
Anyway, we arrived at the top of the mountain, then started back down the mountain, only we didn’t go down, we went up. And up and up. The road started out at 1½ lanes, narrowing down to 1 lane, or maybe ¾ lane. OMG. We met car after car and a few buses, motorbikes, bicycles, walkers, a horse and carriage. The road twisted and turned, switch-backing one after another, about every hundred yards, and I must tell you, it was a lot of fun, which altered my opinion of buses. I was sure we would bump into one of these vehicles, but nope…it was a grand adventure, even in a bus!
We finally arrived at the ocean, after all it is an island, boarded small boats, puttered around the coast with bunches of other small craft and viewed the caves. When we first saw this excursion advertised, I thought…oh great fun, but half the ship thought the same thing, so lots of people, to the cowboy’s chagrin. The caves were remarkable, kind of washouts back into the tall cliffs with brilliant colors in the limestone which highlighted the clear blue water. In the shadow of big rocks, lots of fish swan in the sun-splashed blue Adriatic Sea. It was a good way to spend a couple hours, small boat, big ocean, and bright blue water, not to mention a few hundred of our new best friends.
Corfu is a magnificent island with 120,000 people and a cajillion olive trees and kumquat trees. It’s been ruled by the Turks, French, British, and Phoenicians, and probably a few more. And, as always here’s my bathroom report. One Euro and a turnstile, but the door didn’t shut. Alas.
