Corfu - Poverty in Paradise

My mind wanders when cycling - which is quite dangerous as there are great potholes and open drains and culverts jutting onto the edge of the road exactly where you ride a bike! 

Little shrine and Piaggio outskirts of Corfu Town

We get close to everything on a bike seeing details and sense ordinary people going about their business.  Men in battered cars assiduously going through wheely bins, cats living in or on those same bins surrounded by rubbish of every description that never gets taken away even when the bins are emptied.

Supermarket

Lots of old cars that struggle up the hills, many English voices, not much begging, I don't know how they have managed to curb that.  We saw two policemen on bikes in the Old Town yesterday.

Places survive if commercial - although how the hundreds of tourist shops in the old town make a living I don't know - but we are early in the season.  Lots of fur shops exist here and the windows carry large photos of exotic fur clad women. Ferries do a good trade and there are many ferry ticket booths, and there are lots of small independent supermarkets which are what we would think of as corner shops. Even the larger supermarkets seem to be independent.  There are no chains like Tesco or Sainsburys, although there are Lidl's.

The Archaeological museum closed years ago, The museum of Asian Arts is open. Private funding or coach tours? - when we rode past there were coaches outside, they have to have somewhere to go! Mon Repose, birthplace of Prince Philip looks very shabby and the house is locked up.  Archaeological sights are behind locked gates and there is no tourist information centre in Corfu Town.  Information on the internet is often misleading as things have changed so much since the financial crisis so information on the internet is often years out of date. Like the non existent trains - but that is another story which had had a rather dramatic effect on our plans - good job they are fluid!

We are in a beautiful wild paradise here on the hills in Poulades, where everything is lush and green.  Each day we run the gauntlet of the dog down the road and we feel a bit vulnerable on our bikes.  This leads down to a fairly main road and we are trying to find roads that are not too busy, but not the ones that lead past villas with dogs snarling and jumping at us from behind fences and sometimes running after us, cycling thought the back lanes is anything but peaceful!

There are many villas in the hills and everything depends on getting around by car.  The resorts like Gouvia and even Palaiocastritsa (which is supposed to be posh) remind me of Paignton but in a heat haze. There are simply masses of tavernas and bike (scooter) hire and little shops selling this and that, mainly souvenier shops.  Everything for the masses, except there are not masses of people yet as it's only mid April.