Newsletters

Christmas preparations started a little this year and were overshadowed by the excitement of a new Kafenion and grill room opening in the village!

Agnigate, we give our account of the recent newspaper stories!

You'll be pleased to know that as I type this, from the Agni Travel office, it is warm and sunny. The views from our office window reach over to Corfu Town and the sea below. The hydrofoil can just be seen skimming its way down to Paxos; the very same hydrofoil that we returned on this morning. Yesterday being spent visiting the Paxos office then later a meal at 'Taka Taka', now a fond memory.....

Sunday the 14th of September, started like any other summer day, here in Greece. It had been nearly 4 months without rain. How do the olive tress survive without a single drop of rain, I wondered while I walked from Agni to my car......

Spring is in the air and Easter just around the corner! In this month's newsletter we tell you about the highlights of Greek Easter, of Nathan's almost abortive attempt to reach Athens in the SNOW, of a brand new villa with pool on our books and much more besides....

With Agni Travel dedicated to helping you choose a perfect holiday, we thought it was about time to tell you where Greeks go on holiday! Where does Spiros, your taxi driver, or Maria, your villa cleaner, choose to go? Summer holidays, for all those connected with travel and tourism here, are pretty much a 'no-no' (it doesn't translate well, trust me, no-one says an 'ohi-ohi' over here). Working long hours and lucky to have a day off, you'll often hear the Greek equivalent of "roll on winter..."

This year's Chistmas was exceptionally mild - our pre-Christmas office party was held outside, around Villa Persephone's pool! Then 2008 started with a a fantastic fire-work display.

Agni Travel announces exciting new properties and destinations.

Call me a 'Yerolathas' (the Greek equivalent of Ebeneezer), but this does seem to be the earliest that Christmas has started for us in Greece. When I first moved to Greece, locals would only start putting up the decorations during Christmas week!!

Autumn is here with all the fabulous shades of terracotta, burnt sienna and olive green daubed across the landscape. The roads are now empty and driving a delight - journeys that take an hour in the summer months can now be covered in half the time (with one eye on the speedometer, of course...!).

You may recall that Greece has been suffering a drought this winter and we reported this in our last newsletter. Well, the moment we started to send the newsletter out, it started raining! On this note, we had better keep this month's newsletter a little shorter! The whole Agni team have been involved in this month's: Norma and Nathan take a winter trip to Paxos. Sofri visits Grevena. Rachel finds a house to rent and Stella learns Greek!

December seems to focus entirely on Christmas, and that's as it should be, we suppose. Stores and supermarkets have been decorated appropriately since the last week of November, and any day now the programme breaks on Greek TV will acquire those seasonal sprigs of holly. Greece was later in commercialising Christmas than, say, Britain, and later in beginning the annual campaign to lure the money out of our pockets, but then Greece still has other things to celebrate in December.

Holiday visitors to Corfu find it hard to imagine what happens to the island when the summer is over. Is there life after the holiday season, or does it become a forlorn ghost, a sad place just waiting for May and the next wave of tourists to bring it to life again? There most certainly is life on Corfu after the holidaymakers leave, and our November newsletter is a very good guide to some of the autumn aspects of life on the island. A mention of two dramatic World War II incidents that are commemorated annually, a look at the Durrell family, a suggestion for a cake made from the island's autumn produce, a hint of the changes in the countryside at this time of year - our Newsletter guides you gently into an appreciation of the 'other Corfu' - the one that encourages those who live here to understand and enjoy some of the quality of life that seems to be vanishing elsewhere.

Where did the summer go? We have had those late summer storms, and while there is no real need to assume that the summer is entirely over, there are signs that we are moving into what the Greeks have always called 'the little summer', and what is better known to the British perhaps, as 'Indian summer'.....

MUSICAL TRADITION IN CORFU June and July are punctuated by festivals and name days, and all such occasions are marked in Corfu with music of some kind. Occasionally, you still hear music that has nothing to do with anything as official as a festival, and everything to do with natural high spirits and good humour. For example.....

May Day has been and gone, but the memory lingers on.. in the wreaths of dried flowers still hanging on doors and gates throughout Greece. In many parts of the world, May Day is celebrated by commemorating past political and military events and The Worker is the Hero of the day. In Greece, after the processions, banner-waving and slogan-shouting, Greeks do what they like doing best - go off to the country to pick flowers and wild greens and celebrate with a picnic or a good meal at a country taverna.

Welcome to Corfu and Kronya Pola! Hoping you enjoyed Christmas as much as we did here on Corfu? I am sure you will be interested to know how our Christmas was celebrated in Greece.

Welcome to Greece! It certainly has been a busy summer here in Corfu. The weather has been perfect, the taverna busy and the island thriving. It's a few months since our last newsletter, so this month's, like the grape harvest, is a bumper one. Yammas!!! November 05 Corfu News

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