1245. Putting a Cork in Kerkira (aka "Cruising through Corfu'" or "Orange Kumquat Man")


Well, we brought half a dozen or so stamps with us to plant on our last mostly Eastern Mediterranean cruise in December 2024, but somehow got so occupied with other things that we only remembered to plant this one, and then even completely forgot about posting a clue for it! So, from what we can remember a couple of months later, we took a pleasant walk from the new cruise pier to the old cruise pier of Old Corfu Town, passing the north side of the "new fortress" (16th century Venetian), skirting the northeastern shore edge of Old Town to within a mile of Albania and then continuing to the distinctive "old Byzantine fortress" created perhaps a millenium or so earlier on its own little moat-connected steep rocky island!

From there, we cut through the gardens and arcades to find ourselves caught up in large crowds, including several marching bands and honeyed kumquat venders, awaiting the viewing of the bones of Saint Spiridon which were being brought out for a special occasion from that cathedral. Afterwards we visited a few other churches, shops and galleries, then made our way uphill to the south side entrance of the new fortress, which was closed. So, we made our way back down the west side of the enormous fortress wall with a couple of inlaid stone medallions of the winged lion of St Mark along the street called Lochagou Spiridonos Vlaiku.

About halfway down that hill we found an open green area with a couple of benches and a flat angled information panel entitled "Scarpon" directly beneath one of those winged lions inset high above. Facing that history panel (in English to the right, Greek to the left), take about 15 steps from its Greek side, following along and beyond the white line on pavement, to a white rock nested in a small grassy corner of some of the rocks at the base of the escarpment. There behind a couple of smaller gray stones is where we left an "orange-faced man", carved and stuck on a cork by knits of New York, in memory of those delicious orange kumquats! (and too bad we couldn't remember to leave a "blue-faced man" near the Blue Mosque in Istanbul or a "red-faced man" near the cathedral housing the bones of Saint Nicholas in Bari, Italy, but at least we remembered to plant this Greek one!;-)

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