Did I say we were going to Corfu? No I did not, I did not want to be robbed by announcing I was going away. Anyway, so we did, and now we are back, and it was an awesome holiday... I will update with details sporadically and in a nonsensical order. I will ultimately start to forget things about the trip, such is the way. If you are in my close family I have probably already shared some pictures and video with you, and I will share some pictures publicly.
We stayed at the MarBella Corfu, yes it's in Corfu and not Marbella and yes they capitalise it in the middle there. It was awesome, a fabulous place, deserving of its 5 star rating. We were collected by an air-conditioned people carrier from Corfu Airport, though initially our Thomson rep had no record of our arrival... Guessing this is Thomson's mistake, though I see from the hotel's own website1 the transfer is provided by them and not by Thomson. About a half hour / forty minute ride from the airport, slightly dusty views initially but then it gets lovely again when you ride along the sea front road to the hotel. The sea is so glittery and blue there and we first saw this about midday, in peak sunshine. There are constant mountainous views across the sea, initially I put this down to Albania in the distance but turns out I was looking the wrong way and it's the Greek mainland. This was our view throughout our stay, from most points in the hotel and our room itself.
As we did not arrive en-masse there was no-one to greet us as such but we checked in as normal at reception. All helped ourselves to peach juice and checked in seamlessly. We remembered to book onto the complimentary boat trips straight away! There is a free sunset cruise and a free boat trip to Corfu Town with each stay but you have to book in immediately or they are booked up. They were already booked up when we arrived... No matter we were put on the waiting list and it all worked out OK.
The hotel is set up on the hillside so the reception is actually on the fifth floor, as was the main restaurant and bar, and our rooms were down on floor one. Sounds like we're down in the basement, but we're still about half way up the complex with a lovely sea view. Our room was divided into two with big sliding doors so the boys room was also the lounge. Each half had a TV and plenty of space, and they had sliding doors out to a seating area, then to a little garden, then to paths down through the complex ultimately to the beach. Jim's room was a couple of doors along from us and similar but a bit smaller. Plenty of space though. The bathrooms were big and mostly open, only the toilet being actually closed from the rest of the "apartment".
We unpacked quickly and raced to dinner in the main restaurant before it closed for lunch, must be about 13:30 local time by now. It was a large buffet with broadly similar things each day, though themes for dinner, more Asian one night, more Italian the next. Lots of choice for us all. Number one son mostly enjoyed the Greek sausages and ate his own bodyweight every breakfast time. Number two ate as little as he could get away with...
I will be back with more details of all of the parts of the trip, there's so much to fit in. So far we have not explored any of the hotel...
💬 Thomson's part in our holiday
Paul Clarke's weblog - I live in Hythe in Kent. Wed + dad to two, I am a full stack web engineer, + I do js / Node, some ruby, python, php etc. I like pubbing, running, eating, home automation + other diy stuff, history, genealogy, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, + TIME TRAVEL.