Women calling out to one another how are you? How are the children? Are you going swimming?
Where at the local minimarket I see an old woman sitting on a plastic chair in the cafe with plastic walls singing old traditional tunes with no accompaniment. Men murmur their approval when she stops and children stare fascinated wondering when they will get an ice cream or a sweet.
Where a grandfather swings his grandchild on a plastic swing on the terrace between the lanes and sings in his lilting, rich voice a melody full of love and childish rhymes. The child joins in on the familiar words in an innocent warble to the delight of his serenader and it all ends in joy and laughter.
On Thursday 16th January, we met outside the gates of Mon Repos to start our tour of the old town, guided by Hilary Paipeti, originator of the Corfu Trail.
We were lucky to have a crisp sunny morning for our stroll.
Hilary had given us home work in the form of information on leylines which trace energy fields across the continent of Europe. The idea that thousands of years ago, man was able to identify lines of connectivity linking major sites of worship across such a large space is truly incredible. Given that the authorities in Gatwick airport are challenged by an electronic drone in the 21st Century, one really must ask how the ancients were able to trace lines without any technology at all.
The first site was that of ancient Roman baths. But Hilary
was not yielding this information easily. We had to imagine and guess what the
ruins were before she described how she was present when the director of the
dig identified two walls as being too narrow for a path or alleyway and could
only be a channel for water. The ruins were brought to life for us by this
description and the various caldariums and saunas took shape before our eyes.
Across the road is the island’s oldest Christian church, 3rd Century BC and Byzantine in architecture. It is located next to an ancient Agora or marketplace – greek students nοtice the similarity with the word αγορασω, to sell!!! Large stone slabs are found all over this site once they dug down to a certain level. It was the largest Roman Forum in the Mediterranean.
Our next stop was the Monastery of Agioi Theodora. This is a beautiful church with many of the old engravings remaining such as ancient crosses.
It was built in the 3/4 century AD, using stones from the Temple of Artemis which is in its grounds.
This temple was built in 600/580 BC and, along with the rest of the city, was vandalised by the Huns and Goths coming down from the North in the third to fourth century.
It is this Temple that forms the most important part of the St Michael – Apollo Leyline. It is here that the Christian Archangel Michael is replaced by the god Apollo who is the brother of Artemis to whom the Temple is dedicated. From the western end of this Temple which now lies in ruins was taken the pediment depicting the Gorgon. This was placed in the archaeological museum of Corfu. The significance of this piece of bas relief art is set out in the information pdf circulated prior to our walk. It highly representational of the power of women in ancient times.
On the ground, one can see the bases of the columns which
formed the church and a sketch of how it would have looked, when painted in all
its glory, is on the descriptive panel beside the site. The energy lines can be
traced although it is not possible to stand in the ruins themselves.
While this was probably the highlight of our tour, we spent
most of our time in the graveyard around the corner. Here many of Corfu’s most
eminent families are buried and magnificent and poignant tombs mark their
demise. Hilary recounted numerous tales of dynasties and the rise and fall of
many an ambitious man.
One of the most touching however, was the tomb erected to
the memory of girl of twenty one. She is depicted in bas relief, holding a book
and with one of her feet protruding from the frieze, as if she could just step
out. Beside her is a flower, broken in full bloom. One can only imagine the
heartbreak of her parents who were buried many years later in the same grave.
Hilary remarked on the parallel with the Gorgon also being
depicted in bas relief albeit two and a half thousand years earlier.
The peace of the place on such a beautiful morning affected
us all. The airport is less than one hundred metres away but you would never
have guessed it.
We rounded off the morning in a café in the heart of old Garitsa.
It was a December of bells. Not sleigh bells but sheep
bells. Rattling and clanking across the fields as up to fifty animals are moved
to better pastures, each one precious enough to have its own bell in case it
gets lost. And each bell different and handmade. Brass, faded or glinting in
the sunshine, decorated or too tarnished to show a pattern, long with a pretty
chain or short with an old leather tie. But each one with that lonely plaintive
sound, mingling together to form a cacophony.
The afternoon is
quite often sunny here and I take the opportunity to lie out in the hammock
before the darkness falls. I read a bit and then invariably doze off, my dreams
interspersed with the sheep bells as they are herded across the valley below,
the cacophony becoming running water in my sleep laden brain. I wake and look
around at the olive trees and the stillness.
I am reading James Angelos book on the Greek economic catastrophe.
And I think what is this country I have come to. Full of contradictions and
turmoil. Mirroring Ireland in so many ways but then seeming to walk itself into
deepening chaos. The agricultural base, the years of domination by other powers,
the stunningly beautiful country side, surrounded by water, all paralleling
Ireland’s history. But it cannot seem to pull itself out of the economic mire. Is
it the weight of the early Greek civilisation that they feel they have to live
up to or is it that they feel they have nothing to prove given what their
forbears did for the world.
The night is so absolute here. No glow from a town to dilute
the starry sky. But the moon was in its crescent phase for much of the month
and is only now giving us some light at night. It was a month of storms too. Storms
that had no moon to illuminate the deep inky blackness. When lightning streaked
across the sky it was the more intense for its murky background. So you make
the most of the daylight before going in
to light a fire. Or there is always a welcome at the cafeneion where the Greeks
keep company on the winter nights.
As we approach the shortest day of the year and move towards a new year, it is easy to see how Greeks can become distracted from the mundanities of life. With their wonderful, complex and intricate language, their commitment to φιλοχενια or filoxenia, literally love of the foreigner or hospitality, and the extremes of nature playing out all around them, what’s a few points on the stock exchange to make international bonds beyond the country’s reach.
The bell may toll on Wall Street to end a day’s trading but
it will never sound as well as the bells that wake me from my afternoon nap!
Bells at Gardylades
Lemons so full of pips they are lumpy on the outside
AH SURE AZURE 