Dinos, Kaminaki, Corfu 2nd July 2001
Today was planned as a ‘lazy day’, and that’s pretty much how it turned out: a day of reading (I finished Prospero’s Cell), swimming, lounging, eating, a bit of walking – crucially, no driving.
Our Thompson/Travel a la Carte rep, Norma, visited in the morning and we booked to go to Albania next week.
I strolled across to the olive groves with a camera before lunch, to try to capture the patterns of the curving terraces, the swags of netting and the gnarled trunks.
Lunch then a siesta.
Late afternoon we walked along the winding, rocky coastal path to Agni. On the way we stopped at the Nissaki Beach Hotel where a grumpy receptionist changed travellers’ cheques. The hotel lacked character both inside and out; in its anonymity it could have been anywhere.
Back on the path, we brushed past pink alliums, purple honesty and sinuous yellow foxtail lilies, the shrill call of the cicadas filled the pine and thyme scented woods. Down below the barely moving sea murmured over the rocks and yachts glided swan-like in the bay off Agni.
We had intended only to reconnoiter the Taverna Nikolas, but were quickly seduced into stopping for a meal – sea bass, firm fleshed and with just a hint of lemon. We walked back slowly in the fading light, accompanied by bats flitting between the trees and the occasional burst of a closing cicada chorus. Kaminaki announced itself out of the gloom with voices and the clink of cutlery from the taverna.