Liapades, Corfu

June 4, 2018

For the third straight morning, I awoke at six to find no WiFi in the room. I went down to the hotel lobby seeking better luck, and left my camera in the room since I didn’t expect to see anything. The sight of this cricked working its way up the hand rail. I went back to the room for the camera, and was gratified to see him still at it.

The early bird catches the cricket. Pretty amazing how colorful they are - I like the gsporty green and yellow racing stripes.

We have an easyish day ahead of us, or so we think. We’re cutting across to the northwest and spending the night in an apartment in Liapades (pronounced a bit like Leah potties), a village near a well reputed beach. Just thirty miles, 2,200. We have an appointment to meet our host at 4 to let us into our room, so we leave Boukari with thought of arriving early and taking a swim in the Ionian Sea before checking in.

We get off to a good start, heading north along the coast to Messonghi, a pretty little town at the mouth of a tiny river, not too touristy. It looks like we would have enjoyed staying here. From here we followed a riverside lane for a mile or so, until it merged back to the main road. We’re quickly learning that these tiny roads are much preferable to the main roads, which carry more traffic and tend to be lined with tourist facilities. There’s no one on these tiny roads though, and they take you through unblemished woods and orchards that look completely untouched by the crush of tourism Corfu is famous for.

Corfu is a very hilly place, but it’s spotty. This morning we’re crossing the spine of the island at one of the lower spots, and before long we’re over the top, coasting to the coast. We’re back on the main road again, but when we near the coast we wisely branch off to another lane that hugs the coast. Quieter, more scenic, closer to the sea, probably with great views of the water, probably lower elevation and easier.

And that’s exactly what we found, for the first mile. Our empty road brought us to Paramonas Beach, passing through a tunnel of blossoms and appearing like it would dump us right in the sea.

A last look at the view from Boukari, by last night’s restaurant

The mouth of the small Messonghi River, lined with charter boats

Messonghi - nice beach, not too big or busy. Looks like a good choice.

We found a much different experience in Corfu when we stayed away from the primary roads. The island has many paths like this that are quiet, generally carfree, and feel like they haven’t changed in a century.

It looks like we’re going to bike right into the Ionian Sea here, at Paramonas Beach.

A Meadow Brown, the most abundant butterfly in many habitats (Credit: Bill Shaneyfelt)

The map shows this as a paved road. Depends on your definition of both paved and road, I guess. We decided it was better to push through the sand and water than to trust the bridge.

After a short stretch along (and briefly in) the sea, we head back into the woods. It’s beautiful, a bit eerie biking this quiet lane through a tangle of old, untended olives. Soon, we find a surprise - another steep climb, like the one we pushed up last night. Uh, oh.

It’s u, mostly steep up for the next few miles until we come to Pentati, a colorful little village high above the sea. As we enter, the road narrows to single car width, pinched between opposing houses. It’s steep up, there’s no room to pass, and we have a car chasing us up. They’re patient though, and applaud us when we break through the gap and pull off to the side.

After exploring the little place for a bit, we decide that this is a good spot for lunch and are tempted by the sign out front of Angela’s cafe - good food, fast service, rooftop garden with fabulous views of the sea. We lean our bikes against the wall on the side of the road, place our order (Greek salad, beer, large water) with the owner. He’s very accommodating, seems to speak English reasonably well, and fins us the coldest water and beer that he can, with a frosted mug. On the way up to the rooftop we have to watch our step and not step on the free range tortoises camped on the staircase. We sit down, happy with our view and cold beverages, and sit down to wait for our salad.

And wait. And wait. After about twenty minutes (I don’t like to rush folks) I went down to make sure there’d been no misunderstanding. It looks as though he spaced completely our salad order. We settled in, relaxed, and took advantage of the free WiFi.

On roads like these you can let your imagination go and picture yourself in Durrell’s Corfu.

In Pentati, watching our step on the way to the rooftop garden. The owner keeps about a half dozen tortoises in a pen by the stairs, and these two decided to roam.

Finally, after sitting through about an hour of the best part of the day, we started up again. ‘Up’ is the operative word there, to be supplemented by ‘steep’ and ‘agonizing’. Also scenic, although we weren’t that plugged in to scenic at the moment. For the middle part of the day it seemed like we were always climbing (or occasionally walking) up a 10-20% grade, or braking our way down one. No flat.

At the start of the painfully steep climb north from Pentati. It f like we were climbing or falling down 10-15 percent slopes for most of the day’s ride.

Two things about this shot. One, it’s gotten very hot, and we’re taking advantage of shade where we find it. Two, we’re at a junction and choosing between two bad options: climb up to the roadline four hundred feet below us, or drop four hundred feet to Agios Gordita and then climb back out again. We don’t know which will be worse, so we went down to at least stay on the quieter route.

The blue trash bags coordinate well with Rachael’s bike, but Corfu could really strengthen its appeal by addressing its garbage situation. We passed appalling scenes like this all day long.

We bottomed out at Agios Gordios, and are very slowly working our way again. The slope varied from a bad 10% to a crushing 20.

In Sinarades, another stunning, untouristy inland village.

In Sinarades. There is still plenty of evidence of the fact that the Venetians were rulers here.

Cycle365 has a new monthly challenge for June, to submit a ride post focused around a tree. Here’s my first entry.

Heart

Comment

Link

Ride stats today: 29 miles, 3,000’

Today's ride: 30 miles (48 km)
Total: 1,288 miles (2,073 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	7
Comment on this entry	Comment	0