Kerkyra, Greek Island

Our second-to-last day in Kerkyra today -- we fly out at 6am tomorrow morning -- and we're at our first Internet cafe, trying to operate a Greek keyboard and drinking a tasty local beer ("Mythos"). It's been fun, relaxing and very hot, even with a pool at our doorstep and a coastline full of various beaches. When we get home I'll try to upload some photos!

One slight problem with our flight tomorrow morning, of course -- we don't have a room tonight! Standard practise for this particular "package holiday", apparently: we checked out today, and a bus comes to take us to the airport at 3am tonight/tomorrow morning. Package holidays from Britain are not all they're cracked up to be, that's for sure. No wonder the Brits are always complaining...

We flew in a week ago, and we're bussed from the airport to our "resort" -- and the word "resort" has to be in inverted-commas for the simple reason that it was the most basic room and facilities any of us (Dee, brother Chris and I) have ever seen. Including the complete dive we stayed at in Amsterdam! Two narrow beds for Dee and I and a camp stretcher for Chris; empty cupboards without handles; an electric hot-plate which electrocuted me twice; undrinkable tap-water (so they say -- we've been boiling it and it tastes fine); a smelly toilet (you don't flush the toilet paper here, but rather drop it in a bin... good practise for China, where they do the same thing).

But on the positive side: a balcony with an awesome view across the ocean to the Greek mainland; a bright blue pool for early morning dips (and you need 'em, it's 36 today); friendly (enough) bar staff selling cheap Mythos, Ouzo (more about that later) and chilled local wine. So, despite our dismay at finding neither drinkable water nor anywhere to buy some we arrived at 3am on the first night (again, the package holiday standard) we were all feeling positive when we woke late the next morning.

And overall it's been quite a positive stay! We hired a car from the very start, so have been able to explore the island -- from Canal d'Amour in the north to the seedy little nightclub town of Kavos in the south -- and find some really good beaches (Issos -- seems to be the locals hangout). We drove one day into Corfu Town, the main metropolis, and almost drove off Mount Pantocratos one day too, but mostly we've just been relaxing. We're all kind of keen to get home now, however -- the heat gets to you in the end, and we're all brown enough (even after putting on sunscreen twice a day!).

But yes, photos and maybe a little more detail when I have longer on the Internet!