Welcome to San Stefanos (NW Corfu) > Out and About

How I found San Stefanos.!!!

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ann:
debra, there was a wedding at the delphino when we where there one year, and the bride and groom just wanted to stay one night, delphino dont do one night, and they had there wedding breakfast there. xx
 

debra:
Hey Ann

Ben, my son has booked for his wedding for 1st August next year at the Delfino and they will stay there for 3 nights - the rest of us peasants will be staying somewhere a little cheaper!!!  Did the wedding look nice?

tonyco1:

--- Quote from: katmc1 on May 15, 2012, 11:37:34 AM ---I found san stefano 11years ago.My son and I are avid walkers the rest of the family have lost interest to a certain degree.So we got a Thomsons brochure on grece and I opened the page at just anywhere and it opened on the hotel romanza and it said it was ideal for walking so that was it.Eleven years later I still go on my own and now I dont work I can go for 3 weeks of utter peace and relaxation.I have a rest to start with then go walking all over and have even got lost and spent 9 hours walking!!!!!But I have not ever been scared whilst out walking and have been greeted with nothing but kindness and presents of grapes oranges and water.The greek people always say hello.I adore the place and wouldnt go anywhere else but corfu now.The food and mythos are just the icing on the cake.

--- End quote ---
Kat - so many of us feel the same as you on this subject - totally agree!!

debra:
It's funny the hold Ag Stef has on some of us.  I've tried to analyse it. When I returned the first time (something I always said I would never do) I told everyone it was because I have to have school hols and the beach is big and it never feels crowded - do you know what I mean - when you are squashed like pilchards to each other on the beach? I told myself it was because I didn't get around to seeing everything. I want back the third time and I tried to be more objective.  What is it about this little resort?  That time we had been to Thassos eleven days before going to Corfu.  We really liked Thassos, but Corfu felt sunnier.  Not really sunnier in weather, I think the people are sunnier.  Happiness is infectious and by this time people remembered us and that made us feel 'sunnier' - a feeling of belonging began to creep up on us.  Each year, I say, I need to go to Parga or Skiathos or Halkidiki - but my heart says 'I need to go to the place where the sea twinkles and shimmers in the purest shades of turquoise - where beauty is all around me, green even in high season mixed with terracott roofs. Where the sand is easy to walk on and where the sea greets you like a warm bath after a busy day.  I need to watch the sun disappear in the warmest, most spectacuar shades of orange, I need to go to the supermarket where the young daughter says to me, 'I like your face when it smiles'. Smiles - I have a huge grin for all of the time I am there - this beguiling corner of Corfu, this little place that calls me back and back and back'.

Jimbo:
debra - that's one of the most evocative and beautifully written postings I've seen on the forum, and it sums up so much.

We also ask "why?"

The village itself is not pretty, is it, in terms of little old buildings (none), narrow twisty streets (none), Hellenic ruins (none)? Parga has many of those, but the harbour stinks and it's lethally expensive. Lindos is very beautiful, or was until they surrounded the wonderful old centre with hectares of sweaty tourist dwellings. Tolon was quirky and close to Naphplion and Epidavros, but greed has killed the village by building new blocks along the edge of the beach.

Agios Stephanos has the great advantage of geography and geology. We all laugh at the triumphalism of the Romanza dwellers gazing down from their Olympian heights, but it's those hills that make the difference, I think. The village sits, being its own modest self, between the big ridge towards the north and Avliotes, and the dramatic headland that divides the village from Arillas. Wherever you are you can look up or down, get some perspective, enjoy the light. And the beach is so huge that, as you say, there is never a sense of being crowded.

It's only a few miles to Sidari, but when you're there on that flat plane it seems to me featureless, desert-like compared to Agios Stephanos, where there is always a green vista in the corner of your eye.

And then, of course, the people. Friendliness can be simulated, but after a few visits you get to know people, you get to hear things you wouldn't hear in Parga. I don't think we have an word for "lack of greed" but if there is one it would surely apply to the tavernas and apartment owners. I have never felt ripped-off in Agios Stephanos apart from the fruit and doughnut man on the beach.

Finally - I think this forum keeps us connected with the village all year round. A bit of gossip, how's the road going, who's had a baby, now much is a Mythos this year? I've hosted a few forums and I can tell you it is hard work with constant idiots and bots and crap, and takes a lot of hands-on to keep working.

I suspect we've all fantasised about having a little house on the edge of a beautiful Greek bay. Why do we go back? Because we're so much at home it almost feels as though we have. 

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