Most asked questions AFTER visiting CORFU

If you are staying in a village in Corfu you will most likely have a pet during your stay.  There are cats everywhere in Corfu.  The locals like to have them around because they will hunt the snakes and mice.  You will also see them gathered around the dumpsters because the cats that haven’t been able to get food from the people near by end up here.  Very rarely do people here have house cats.

I get asked all the time what are the black nets under the trees in Corfu.  Well, those trees are olive trees, yes there are so many olive trees on Corfu, over 4 million.  The black nets are what they lay down during the olive harvest. They lay them down around the end of October usually every other year (because on Corfu the olives come every other year) until February. They leave them down and wait for the olives to fall.  Every couple of days to once a week they will go to gather them. They use a stick with nails at the end that they stick into the net and pull up to roll the olives into a pile. To find out more on this process check out my blog Olive Harvest in Corfu with The Monk Olive Oil.

I have also got this question a number of times so it made the list. No, if you eat the olive right off the tree it will be way too bitter to eat. After they are gathered they are put into salt water and vinegar for a couple of months before eaten.  However, Corfu olives are not the best to eat.  Corfu olive trees are mostly for olive oil.

This may be the most asked question after visiting Corfu.  An unfortunate reality, Corfu has many houses that are either abandoned or have never been finished.  This can be for many reasons:

Unfinished Houses

• They didn’t have enough money to finish. In 2009, Greece went into a big crisis and many people lost their jobs and people started loosing a lot of money. So if they were in the middle of building a house they had to stop.
• Greeks are also not the best budget keepers.  The Greek mentality usually doesn’t think too far into the future. They have some money now to start and money will come to continue… they assume.
• Most people in Corfu already have a bunch of land, so, since they have the land and don’t know what to do with it they say they will build a house, but then something happens mostly a money factor, but it can also be health or any reason that you can think of and they stop.

Abandoned houses:

• The biggest reason for this is because when the parents are no longer here (having passed away) they tend to leave the house to their children.  This sounds obvious and logical.  However, when you have 2, 3 or more children and you leave the house to all of them, it usually doesn’t work out so well. Most of them will already be living somewhere else and they will usually try to come to an agreement on what to do with the house, but as you probably know it barely ever works out. One will want to sell it, one will want to renovate and rent it on airbnb and another will say no I want to live there. This leads to it being abandoned.

When I am going on hikes with guests, they always ask me how is it August and Corfu is still this green?  Well, many think it is because it rains a lot in the winter.  This may be partly the case, but think about it.  It would have to rain a whole lot all winter to be able to maintain the green of Corfu in August during 40 degree weather. So what is the main reason?

Wake up early in the morning and walk outside.  Your car will most likely be drenched in water.  You will think it has rained. However, Corfu has an incredible amount of humidity.  This humidity waters the whole island allowing everything except for the grass to stay green.  Sometimes early in the morning in the valley there is so much fog you can’t see a couple meters in front of you. It is good for nature, but in the winter bad for your bones!

Like most other places in the world the winters haven’t been too cold in recent years.  Usually, during the day it will be more or less 10 degrees. Sometimes at night it can go below 0 especially in the valley.  A few days ago on 6/2/23 I was driving in the valley and it was -5 degrees!  It can also feel even colder because of the wind and the humidity.

There is rarely ever any snow.  It has snowed so it is possible to snow again, but if it does the ground is too warm and will melt soon enough.

It does rain a decent amount in Corfu! There can be a full week where we don’t see any sun and it is just clouds and on/off rain.  At times it can rain so hard you think it will come down through the ceiling.

oh and,

Yes it does hail!

On some days in the winter, it is hot enough to go into the sea.  It doesn’t happen to often, but sometimes in the sun it can be 20 degrees.

Cypress trees go far back into Corfu’s history.  It is said that the first one was brought hundreds of years ago by an Italian explorer.  Cypress trees like humid environments so they are right at home! Many Greeks used to and still do use cypress trees to build the second floor of their houses.

This is a very broad question and varies a lot. For many on Corfu the winter means NETFLIX.  Many hibernate in the winter and live off of the unemployment they get from working all summer. For others they are still busy, just a different type.  They work to get ready for the next season. This can be anything from renovations to writing blogs… Other than that it is a time to relax for the Corfiots.  So there is also a lot of going for coffee’s with friends.  If Corfiots were in to hiking it would be a great time to hike because the weather isn’t too cold especially if there is sun and as you already know there is plenty of nature in Corfu.

It can be very strange to see Corfu how it is in the summer to how it is in the winter.  It changes from white to black. In the summer everything is open and the roads are busy.  In the winter, most things close down and the roads are empty. Many things are not maintained in the winter.  The locals mindset is, doesn’t matter how it looks now, we will start taking care of it again in March/April.