Corfu, Greece
For my fall break trip while studying abroad, I decided to go on a 10-day “Greece Island Hopping” trip. We visited Corfu, Athens, and Santorini. It was a great trip, and Greece was absolutely beautiful. My favorite part about this trip though, was that I met really great people. This was my first trip that I went on “alone”. I went with a large group of students (Bus2Alps), but no one that I knew. For anyone going abroad, I would definitely recommend going on at least one trip with nobody that you know. I am a fairly shy person so I was really nervous to go to Greece without a friend. But, I wanted to see Greece and I knew I would regret it if I didn’t go. I ended up meeting some really great people, and since we were together for 10 days, we all became good friends.
One of the frustrating things about this trip was that we spent a significant amount of our trip traveling from place to place. I didn’t realize it before my trip, but Corfu, Athens and Santorini are all very far apart from each other. First up, was a 6 hour bus ride to Ancona, Italy. Once we arrived there, we boarded a “cruise ship” and 16 hours later, we were almost in Corfu. Another 1 and a half hour ferry ride and we had arrived!
Our resort in Corfu was called the Pink Palace. We were picked up by a company-owned charter bus when we got off the ferry. All of the resort buildings were a fun pink color, and there was a snack bar overlooking the beach that was a great place to hang out. The view from our bedroom was absolutely beautiful! The first day, my new friends and I decided to spend most of our time at the beach.
The second day, we were all given a few different activities to choose from. I chose to go on an ATV tour, but you could also go kayaking or take a tour of the town. The ATV tour was awesome. We ended up driving around the island for about 5 or 6 hours. Lots of the families around the island could hear us driving by, and they would come out of their houses to wave at us. It was such a fun thing to experience.
After the ATV tour, we ate dinner. All of the dinners were eaten at the Pink Palace, sort of banquet style. The food we were served was very good. After dinner, there was a toga party. All of us were given pink togas to wear, and when I say toga, I definitely mean a piece of fabric. I had no idea that we were going to have to figure out how to tie them on our own. There wasn’t any internet access in our rooms, only the lobby, so we couldn’t find any instructions online. My friend Kendahl and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to tie them. We ended up having the lady at the front desk tie them for us, and they looked great! We got compliments on them all night.
On our last day in Corfu, I rented a kayak and paddled out to a big rock that was out in the ocean. It took about 40 minutes, and the water was so clear that you could still see the bottom of the ocean. It was certainly a memorable ending to my time in Corfu! In the morning we headed to Athens.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit about Corfu!
About the Author
Rachel Budke Rachel is a senior at Kansas State University, where she is studying Bakery Science. In the fall of 2013 she studied abroad in Florence, Italy. She loves cooking, photography and DIY projects.
