Happy Holidays Corfu's Page

It was 10:30 in the evening, and it was stifling. I felt exhausted and uncertain as I stood with two hundred other people in the sweltering hold of the Espresso Venicia, as the ferry's air-conditioned upper decks were closed off now, and all the passengers bound for Corfu had been sent by the Greek Immigration Officers into this iron Purgatory. In anticipation of the docking, the porters started car engines, and the noxious exhaust commingled with the all-too-pungent aroma of two thousand live… Continue

O-a-sis-- (from the Greek) a fertile place in the desert, due to the presence of water -Webster's New World Dictionary During the 1980's and 1990's I traveled quite extensively. In the time spanning 1987 to 2001, I crossed the oceans (Atlantic and Pacific) some thirty times. I visited more than twenty foreign countries, many more than once. While I certainly had a few strange experiences, I never encountered a single circumstance that felt truly threatening. Since 2001, when I first lan… Continue

With its long and varied history, Corfu has played host to many foreigners over the years-- Italians (Venetians), French and British. These days, over a million travelers per year visit the island, and estimates of ex-pats living here range from seven thousand souls on the low side to my own estimate of as many as fifteen thousand. What makes Corfu such a compelling place to visit? And what is it about the place that motivates many of those visitors to pull up stakes in their home country and ca… Continue