Canal d'Amour and other attractions

On this picture you see the famous Canal d'Amour!

Legend has it, that every unmarried woman who is swimming through it and is wishing for a man, will soon afterwards step infront of the altar! But as you can see, Corfu has another peculiarity. For unlike in other parts of the world here the sea level is falling instead of rising - so there was no swimming through the Canal d'Amour, there was NO Water!

Anyway, Hildegard and I decided that it might also work when you walk through it - and so we did! Well, I guess better than nothing!

One of these days we also went to see the "Sissy" residence on Corfu with the huge Achilles statues (search the statue on the picture!). In Germany and Austria - someone told me that it is the same in France? - people are a bit crazy about Sissy, which is known to the rest of the world as Queen Elisabeth of Auttria/Hungary with her husband Franz. There is a film or better three films about her life with Romy Schneider. These films are shown every Christmas on German TV. They are a bit corny, but I loved them when I was young. The real Elisabth spent some of her holidays here and parts of the films were filmed there. Others might know it from the James Bond "For your eyes only"!

We also went hiking or better, we were walking along the coast to a little taverna in a small village called Boukari. The weather was fine that day, not too hot. The way was not too steep and we were walking through the more rural parts of Corfu with little villages and far from the huge tourist hotels.

I love fresh fish and this taverna is famous for its fish dishes. First of all they take you to the kitchen, where you can pick your "personal" fish. I never had such a good fish in my whole life, even though I still don't know what kind of fish it was. The only thing I know is that it was eating smaller fish, for it definitely had two rows of sharp teeth! And we also had one of these delicious Greek salads!

But we also visited some of the other attractions on the island. When you are on Corfu you have to visit the highest mountain with its monastery. They are not quite sure about the actual hight of the Pantokrátor - it varies between 902 and 911 meters. The monastery and the small church are from the 17th century. More than a century the monastery was deserted, but since 1998 it is inhabited again during the summer months by one monk. The view is fantastic, but unfortunately there were still some clouds around, due to the storm the day before. From there you can see the whole island and also Albania and the Greek mainland.

















We also visited Panagia Theotóku tis Paleokastritsas, another monastery on the cliffs. For those who know German: Das weiße Kloster der Allerheiligen Gottesgebärerin von Paleokastritsa. This is the most visited attraction on whole Corfu. At the moment there are still about 10 monks in the monastery, all studied theologians which is quite unusual in Greece.

This is the only monastery in Greece which is not afraid of "dying out", all the monks are very young - mostly younger than 30 and very respected! The gardens are cared for by the villagers. The monastery was founded in the 12th century, but the houses you can see today are from the 18th century. The church is famous for its icons, some of them from the 15th century. But the view is also fantastic - cliffs, deep blue sea - I want to go back!!!!