What could be better than Easter in Corfu when the weather gods have confused their seasons and the weather has turned towards summer. The tourist crowds are there, British as always, mainland Greeks, for the celebrations in Corfu town with competing oompah bands, a legacy of the British protectorate from 1815 to 1864, and the hurling of great red water filled pots out of windows on Easter Saturday to mark the resurrection, to ward off evil, to wash away winter, the exact whys and the wherefores have been lost to time. Is the tradition of the 'botides' a Venetian leftover from those earlier invaders and rulers or home grown in the mists of Ancient Greece. With the perfect view from a grand hospitable apartment overlooking the main streets of the town, it doesn't much matter where the spectacle began, only that it is. After that the religious lead up to the full celebration of the resurrection at midnight when fireworks light up the sky over the Venetian fort and mourning and the lenten fast are broken and forgotten as the palls are swept from altars and all is joy and light.
We watched the fireworks from a rooftop, staying with
friends in the centre of the town and then, through quieter streets, where did
all those people go to? To a villa on a hillside overlooking a truly
azure sea and sky and a view of snow topped Albanian hills, for paschal lamb,
slow cooked to perfection while we walked on sandy paths through acres of
broom, wild lupins, orchids, irises, close to beaches where the brave and the
very young had taken the sun as indicator of warmer water and forgotten those iced
hills only a few miles away.
And what else to do in Corfu. There are ripe little
kumquats to prepare for marmalade and then marmalade to be eaten, wildflowers
to be admired and carefully gathered, walks to be taken up and down hillsides
and along coastal path double dominoes and backgammon to play. People to
meet in more beautiful hill side villas with more staggering views over the
sea. The wonders of the Archaeological Museum. The best food washed
down with wine, the way prepared with astringent ouzo. Deserted villages
on top of hills where the buzz of millions of bees is still the loudest noise,
ancient sites to be picked over and wondered at, sailing and swimming in clear
waters to be looked forward to when summer comes, and the sheer magic of
this island in spite of the tourists, the building, all those villas - they, in
the end are temporary invaders like the Venetians, Byzantines, French, English
and all this built environment can, in the imagination, disappear, to leave the
land, the sea, the wildflowers and the birds and the intangible magic that has
seduced so many visitors and so many more through the literature inspired by
Prospero's isle. Merlin oranges? Yes, he was probably here too, why
not? This the place you would choose if you were a magician.
