Corfu Greece, Part 2

(Continued from the last post...if you haven't already, you can read it here)

PART THREE: Corfu North

In order to travel up to the north coast of the island, we went back into Corfu Town to catch a bus.  The oldest daughter of the hostel family told us the night before that she could give us a ride into town at 9am.  Perfect!  Though the 9am slowly turned into 12:30 (what did I tell you about "Corfu schedules"?), we eventually made it into town (along the way we also picked up a friend of hers).  The bus ride took us through the north central part of the island, which is by far the most mountainous.  We also drove through some more small villages, which at times I thought the bus wasn't going to be able to squeeze through.  It was nice to rest the legs a bit (and by this time my cold was getting pretty bad).

Above: the mountains of North central Corfu.

Corfu, Greece

     

   

Arriving at the Corfu Airport was by far the most laid back airport arrival we've ever experienced.  After a rather ...bumpy ride in on our RyanAir flight (a storm was sweeping through onto the coast from Italy.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared at times.  The man sitting beside me definitely didn't help the situation- telling me things in broken English about how bad of a storm this really is, using hand gestures to elaborate big flashes of lightning) we all crowded off the airplane into the emptiness of the airport.  In a crowd of British tourists, we were waved through customs by two men in jeans and running shoes.  I followed the crowd, holding up my passport in the air (like everyone else)until at the last possible moment, one of the men in jeans noticed my passport wasn't of the European Union.  It was only at that point that any sort of "official-ness" went on, and he gave my passport a big ol' stamp.  Oh, Greece.  We arrived rather late, so we had made reservations at a budget hotel in walking distance from the airport.  It was raining, however coming from a cold few days in Amsterdam, we were delighted with an evening temperature of 13 degrees Celcius.  

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam has been a city that we've been wanting to visit since before even moving overseas to the UK.  With it being not so far from the UK and the extreme low prices of Megabus, we were able to make it happen!  Though it is possible to catch a short, direct flight from Stansted Airport, instead we were first in line at the bus station in London (that's right, we were FIRST in line.  We've learned the hard way to not show up last minute if you are travelling abroad.... remember when we got stuck in Bari, Italy last summer because we missed our ferry?  Haha, we've definitely learned a few things about the do's and don'ts of travelling).  There we were, eager and ready to endure a ten hour bus ride.  On the  bright side, we got the best seats in the house (top level, front) where we could see everything as we made our way through France, Belgium, and finally the Netherlands.  Sounds cool, but the ride itself really wasn't that exciting.... mostly highway driving in the spitting rain.  Better yet, because of the waiting time at the English Channel, we slowly but surely fell behind schedule.  Finally, at 11pm, the bus rolled into the Amsterdam station.