Whoahey! If you’re looking for hot travel tips on Moraitika, Corfu, you’ve found the right place! I’ve been spending my summer holidays in Moraitika since the 1970s with my extended family there. These days, driven by my passion for this village I even write fiction books, setting them there, to tell the whole world about it! For my best recommendations on restaurants, hotels, boat trips and lots more, visit my free travel guide to Moraitika and Messonghi right here!
RETRACING MY STEPS AROUND MORAITIKA, CORFU ALWAYS BRINGS UP OLD MEMORIES…
Oh! Looking at the two photographs above, I marvel at the difference 30+ years make! Here’s a view to the same road in both photographs, and I hope you’re being kind as you compare me with that flawless young girl LOL!
There are always changes, and sad losses to encounter, almost every time I visit Moraitika, but there are always familiar faces to greet – family, friends and neighbors – to catch up with.
After 50 years of almost annual returns to this idyllic little village, one would think I’d have got sick of it by now, but the opposite is the case. If I don’t go there once a year, it feels like a lost summer, if not worse.
And the memories… Oh, the memories! By now, I know every crack in the pavement. Not just in my granny Antigoni and granddad Spyros’s tiny lane where I had the best summers of my life as a child and young woman, but everywhere…
Take this view, for instance. I imagine you’re looking at the remains of the stately home that stands there, at “Kato Vrysi” (Lower Tap), where a municipal tap served the whole village back in the day. Or, maybe, your eyes were pinned to the lush mountain and the clear blue sky.
Not me. What I’m looking at is the ground. Every time I walk around this village I tend to look down a lot. And as I do so, my mind fills with old memories and precious people I have lost.
Some are memories of laughter and innocent first love, and others are less favorite moments of my life, scenes that are not exactly pleasant, which I also get to revisit, despite myself.
It’s a mixture of odd sentiments, but the love always defeats the pain, somehow. And I owe this to my grandparents and the perfect summers they gave me. The greatest gift I have ever been given, which inspired the second novel I ever wrote (The Ebb).
Back to the ground in the photo… and where my eyes landed. You see the deep crack on the left? That’s where, one quiet Easter time back in the 80s, my father handed me a big fat shovel and showed my sister and me how to mix cement, right on that spot. You think I’m joking? I’m not. I was around 15, thin as a rake. My idea of manual work at the time was limited to playing hoops. I got calluses in my hands that Easter, needless to say.
Not one of my favorite memories of Dad, and I do prefer to revisit the happier ones he left me with. For example, when I was little, he used to lift me up to sit on his shoulders, and he’d carry me for hundreds of meters along the main road of Moraitika.
The tourists, who were much more vocal and loud back in the day (people were just happier in the 1970s, I guess!) used to greet us and wave frantically, even from the other side of the road. My family would wave back, and Dad made it great fun for me and my sister (we took turns to sit on his shoulders).
He also took us syrtaki-dancing in the tavernas some nights when we were small kids, which was also a lot of fun. I always think of those nights when I pass by the same places. Some of these businesses are now owned by other families, and others are derelict or completely gone, but the memories, as I walk past, never fade.
The beach of Moraitika is another place where the memories come rushing to meet me every time I get there. Take this stretch of beach, for instance. The photo is taken from Delphinia Hotel (where the pier is) looking out toward the south and Messonghi.
What can I say about this beach? The memories are endless, dating back from the early 70s. But I’ll share my favorite memory that made its way into my semi-autobiographical novel, The Ebb.
Every August, on the night of the full moon, the most resplendent of the year, Granddad would make a visit to the local pizzeria. It was located where the roundabout now is and made the most delicious pizza I’ve ever known. He would take two boxes and then pick us up–my granny, my sister and two cousins (his two other granddaughters), and lead the way to the beach by the pier…
The pier inevitably inspired The Ebb and the whole “The Lady of the Pier” trilogy, by the way. No surprise there…
The only real difference is that instead of calling the village Moraitika, I called it “Vassilaki,” to honor my great-grandfather, Stefanos Vassilakis, who was the first priest and teacher of Moraitika. He is buried by the church on the hill. You may have passed by his grave a few times if you’re a regular visitor to the village.
Every time I pass it by, I greet him with a “Yassoo, Pappou!” And in my heart, he always answers.
Anyway… Back to those unforgettable pizza nights under the August full moon…
We would settle on the cool sand in the darkness, with only Granddad’s big flashlight offering some adequate illumination so we could see the pizza boxes and pick a slice.
It was magical. Especially as the moon shone the best it ever could. It was magnificent, with an orange tint and an eerie aura, setting the sea alight with a liquid fire of silver and gold.
As an adult, many summers I have tried to get to the same spot and sit on the sand under the full moon to replicate the magnificence of the experience, and I’m still to succeed… I’m sure I never will.
The memories of those pizza nights under the full moon in the 1980s remain indellible to this day and nothing compares. Granddad Spyros set the bar too high, bless his soul.
GO HERE TO SEE ALL THE PHOTOS I TOOK THIS SUMMER IN MORAITIKA. ENJOY THE SUNSHINE AND THE HAPPY, CAREFREE VIBES!
GO HERE FOR A SUPER-SHORT VIDEO I TOOK ON THE BEACH LOOKING OUT TO THE NORTH, TOWARD CORFU TOWN, TO THE EAST, TOWARD THE SHORES OF ALBANIA, AND TO THE SOUTH TOWARD MESSONGHI.
ENJOY THE STRONG CICADA SONG AND THE RELAXING SOUNDS OF THE SEA… YOU’RE WELCOME! 😘
FOR MY BEST RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS IN MORAITIKA, CORFU – AND EVEN FOR THE BEST BOAT TRIPS TO ENJOY – MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY INSIDER’S TRAVEL GUIDE HERE! IT INCLUDES INFO ON MESSONGHI AND OTHER IDYLLIC PLACES NEARBY.
IF YOU’VE ENJOYED THIS POST ABOUT CORFU, YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO CHECK OUT:
### A lifetime of Corfu summers. Memories from Moraitika and Messonghi in the 1970s and 1980s
### A tragic story of love and revenge from Corfu’s distant past, in the bygone era of the Ottoman empire. Nikolaos Pierris and a young harem girl, Nazli Hanum, fell in love…
### Old postcards from Corfu by Angelos Giallinas, and nature walks and hikes around Corfu
### In the lanes of Corfu town, there’s a tiny dairy shop with a global allure that not many tourists know about!
For all my posts about Corfu, go here.
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