A childhood dream is about to be realized: to visit the
ancient sites of Greece, and the islands and seas that I first read about in
Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology. We began our tour of Greece with a visit to
the island of Corfu, called Korkyra in Greek, and the original home of the ancient
Phaeacians first mentioned in The Odyssey
of Homer. The Greek myth tells the story
of how the sea-god Poseidon abducted the lovely nymph Korkyra and took her to
an unnamed island where the son of their union was born, and they called him
Phaiax. The island took the name Korkyra
and the inhabitants were known as Phaiakes, or in Latin Phaeacians, famous
Greek sea-farers.
Sailing to Corfu we crossed into the GMT +2 time zone and
lost an hour of time. Located at the
southern tip of Albania, Corfu is an island at the very northwestern edge of
Greece in the Ionian Sea. The ship
docked in the harbor about two miles away from the Old Town, and we again made
the early morning excursion assembly call.
After leaving the ship we were met at the bus by our tour guide, Zita,
and were soon on our way to the Old Town of Corfu. While on the way, Zita taught us to say “good
morning” in Greek -- kalimera -- and gave us an historical
overview of Corfu, as opposed to the mythological.
The earliest colonists of Corfu were from Corinth in the 7th
century BC, and they grew to become a trading rival to powerful Corinth. In fact, the first recorded naval battle in
Greek history was between Corinth and Corfu in 664 BC. Corfu appealed to Athens for aid in its
struggle with Corinth, and Athens responded, sparking the Peloponnesian Wars of
the 4th century BC. When the
Roman Republic was embroiled in the last of its civil wars in 31 BC, Octavian
used Corfu as a naval base for his operations against Marc Antony and
Cleopatra. The history of Corfu is
marked by constant changes of ownership, depending on who controlled maritime
trade in the eastern Mediterranean. In
1386 Corfu asked Venice to provide protection from pirates (always a threat to
coastal cities), and from then Venice ruled Corfu until the end of the Venetian
Republic in 1797. After a brief period
under the French rule of Napoleon, which ended in 1815, Great Britain
established a protectorate over the island, and Corfu became the seat of the
British High Commissioner. When the
British withdrew in 1864 Corfu, along with the other Ionian Islands, joined the
Kingdom of Greece. The people of Corfu
regard as a point of honor the fact that throughout the long history of Greece,
only Corfu remained outside the control of the Ottoman Empire, and no Turkish
influence is to be found on the island.
Our first stop on the tour was the Achilleion Palace, the
elegant 19th century vacation home of Elisabeth, Empress of Austria
and Queen of Hungary. The tragic life of
Elisabeth (1837 – 1898), called Sisi by her family, has been told in books,
movies and an Austrian television series (Sisi was portrayed by Romy
Schnider). A famous beauty, Sisi was
born into the Bavaria royal family of Wittelsbach and married her cousin the
Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Franz Joseph in 1854 when she was 16 and he was 24
years old. Her unhappiness with the
responsibilities of imperial life drove her out of Vienna and, after much
travelling, she purchased a crumbling villa on a hill overlooking Corfu Town,
tore it down, and built the Achilleion, named for Achilles the Greek hero of
the Illiad. Because of Sisi’s
romantic nature, and fascination with the culture and civilization of Ancient
Greece, she had her refuge built in Classical Greek style, from the
architecture and the gardens to the interior decorations and furniture.
Elisabeth’s life, blessed with unimaginable wealth and
beauty, was filled with, and ended in tragedy.
Her only son Rudolf committed the murder-suicide of the scandalous
Mayerling Incident in 1889, and she herself was murdered by an Italian
anarchist in Geneva in 1898. After her
death, the Achilleion was closed for almost ten years until 1907 when it was
bought by the German Emperor Wilhelm II.
The Kaiser made some changes to the palace decorations, most notably
replacing the statue of the dying Achilles, originally in the garden
overlooking the sea, with an enormous bronze status of “Achilles Triumphant.”
Our tour guide Zita led us through the palace, pointing out
the numerous portraits of Elisabeth, as well as the neo-classic paintings and
frescoes of mythological themes. We saw
the grand staircase, the drawing rooms, and the chapel, Elisabeth’s office with
her souvenirs, and Wilhelm’s office and his souvenirs, which included the
original flag from the German imperial yacht “Hohenzollern.” Out in the garden, Zita showed us the various
neo-classic statuary lining the courtyard of the Nine Muses, Three Graces, and
inside the peristyle gallery surrounding the courtyard were thirteen busts of
ancient Greek philosophers. The original
statue of the “Dying Achilles” was placed here on Wilhelm’s orders,
representing the Homeric hero trying to pull the Trojan prince Paris’ arrow
from his heel, the only vulnerable part of his body.
On the way back to Old Town we passed under the ruins of the
“Kaiser Bridge” built for Wilhelm II to easily move from the Achilleion garden
to the port with his private dock, which is still usable. The Old Town of Corfu is a charming, sleepy
place between the Old and New Fortresses, with a garden zone called the
Spianada with a cricket pitch leftover from the British. The Old Citadel sits on a wedge of land
jutting into the bay, which had once contained the entire town. The fortifications have been damaged and
repaired over the centuries, and what we see is essentially what the Venetians
built in the 16th century.
The winged lion of St Mark, symbol of Venice, over the gate is a
reminder. Zita told us the layout of the
modern town was specifically designed to minimize hostile sieges of the
fortress. The streets are perpendicular
to the fortress giving any defenders a clear view of the streets, and the width
of the Spianada, the garden zone between the fortress and the town is greater
than the range of 17th century artillery. The charming arcaded terrace along the
western side of the Spianada resembles the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, because the
designer was Mathieu de Lesseps, whose son built the Suez Canal.
On the north side of the Spianada is the neo-classical
Palace of St Michael and St George, once the residence of the British High
Commissioner. The statue of the second
Commissioner Sir Thomas Maitland stands in front of the building. Zita told us a story about him: Maitland came to Corfu a middle-aged man and
fell in love with a married woman of Corfu.
The husband was persuaded to divorce the woman, and after she married
Maitland she demanded a new villa. The
palatial landmark Mon Repos was the result, eventually becoming the birthplace
of Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1921.
The most important cathedral in Old Town Corfu is the Church
of St Spyridon. The 16th
century church, easily identified by its bell tower, holds the silver coffin of
the saint who was a bishop-martyr from Cyprus and is now the patron saint of
Corfu. We filed into the church with
dozens of Sunday worshippers for a glimpse of the coffin in a small alcove
behind the main altar, surrounded by Greek Orthodox icons. After that we had some free time to explore
the narrow streets with small shops of local handicrafts and gifts, and the
cafes and ice cream stands. Many places
had small bottles of the orange liqueur made from kumquats, called Kuom Quat, distilled
and available only in Corfu. The walk
through Old Town was a treat, a chance to see the narrow, winding streets, the
picturesque squares, the high arcaded houses with the brilliant blue sky above,
all of us snapping photos as we went.
Easy to understand how Corfu has an exotic reputation. In addition to its connection with Homer’s The Odyssey, Corfu is the setting for
Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, from
where we hear Prospero’s line that “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
For anyone planning a trip to Corfu, and in need of a wonderful,
helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly tour guide:
Zita Jambor, Licensed Tourist Guide (English, Hungarian,
Greek)
Mobile: (+30) 6946
540 431Email: jamborz@hotmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment