Graffiti Festival

After a year of hard work and meticulous planning by a committee of young enthusiasts, the 2nd Annual Pelekas Art Festival took place at the beginning of July.

More than 170 performers and artists from Greece and abroad took part. These included 45 graffiti writers; 8 bands; 12 DJs; dancers and jugglers. A campsite was built including 4 chemical toilets and a shower block! Freshly prepared food and drinks were available day and night. 120 metres of wall on the approach road to Pelekas became a blank canvas for four giant murals based around the four seasons in Corfu.

Throughout the day the DJs provided a musical backdrop and at night some of the best Greek Hip-Hop and Reggae bands played on a huge stage erected under the olive trees. On alternate nights there was live music and performances in the village square.

This festival is unique, certainly in Greece and possibly in Europe. It is virtually unheard of for a local authority to provide both walls and financial backing for such an event. This year it attracted hundreds of visitors and can only continue to grow. It should be mentioned that the generosity of local businesses in providing free food and accommodation for many of the performers was much appreciated. As were the contributions from commercial sponsors as well as donations from the EC and various local bodies, including the Pelekas Cultural Society.

To visit the Festival's website click here. To see some pictures from the festival click here.

Streetbeat Festival

This year's Streetbeat ran from July to early August, during which time bands from various parts of Europe performed in the two village squares. Music ranged from Latin to R'n'B, Country, Blues, Afro-Caribbean, Jazz, Funk, Soul and Rock n' Roll.

The 2006 Streetbeat Festival started on 20th July with two very contrasting bands playing in the upper square. The exciting and passionate musical mix of the Dutch band Da Gaia was followed by the hot rhythm' n' blues of The Dirty Sundays, a band of musicians from different countries living in Corfu. The first band took the audience on an exotic exploration of rhythms and melodies while The Dirty Sundays brought them back to more familiar places with their combination of fiery guitar licks, steady funk and blues grooves, and impressive jazzy piano improvisations.

On the following Thursday, the music transferred to the main square. The Shiner Twins opened the night with their distinctive country rock and blues and got the audience dancing and singing. Then came Zona Bastarda. This group of local Corfiot musicians, with their ‘revolutionary’ songs, subversive attitude and unique mix of Afro-Cuban, jazz and soul sounds, brought the evening to a climax and had everybody dancing in the street. This band has a very committed following and most of them were there that night!

The third concert - back in the top square - featured two familiar bands from past festivals and the debut of local band On the Fence. The Corfiot rockers produced a set of impressively performed hard rock anthems. Streetbeat regulars Johhny’s Explo, the original rock 'n 'roll hellraisers from Holland, followed. The amazing guitar acrobatics of Berthus (Clogman) and the mad energetic performance of singer / frontman Lenno took the audience by storm. The night ended with an injection of disco and soul music by Streetbeat favourites Grandmother B, an ensemble of fourteen musicians. The spectacle of this outstanding party band performing in the square of a small Greek village, with the street full of dancing people, was one of the best moments of this year’s festival.

The fourth concert was not advertised on the original poster and, after a stormy day, only went ahead at the last minute. Special guests were a seven-piece funk band from Crete, Biri-Biri, who opened the night with an energetic performance of mainly original material. Then the aggressive and powerful songs of the Italian garage band, The Records, pushed the audience into a higher gear. With their original rough guitar sound, imposing beat, smart costumes and an unstoppably crazy front man, Dick Rocket, The Records easily persuaded the audience to give their best as well. As befitting the last concert of the Festival, the night ended with a five minute free funk jam session that included members of all the bands.

Pelekas Festival

Pelekas Festival, which celebrates the name day of the patron saint of Pelekas - Theotokos Odigitria - takes place each year on August 24th. This year, the Pelekas Folk Dance group performed dances from both Corfu and Kefalonia. To see more pictures from the festival click here.

Cookery Corner

This page gives you the opportunity to re-create some of your favourite Corfiot taverna recipes at home. This month, Bougatsa - a sweet cream pie.

Ingredients

Half cup unsalted butter. Half teaspoon cinnamon. 1 egg. 1 egg yolk. 8-10 sheets filo pastry. Icing sugar. 2 teaspoons lemon juice. One and a half cups milk. Quarter cup semolina. Half cup sugar. Half teaspoon vanilla. Salt.

Instructions

Beat the eggs until frothy and beat in the sugar until thick and foamy. Set aside. Heat the milk in a medium size pan until hot but not boiling. Remove from the heat. Whisk a small amount of the hot milk slowly into the egg mixture. Pour the egg mixture into the hot milk, whisking quickly and constantly so that eggs don't curdle. Return to a medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly, for about 3 minutes. Gradually sprinkle in the semolina and add a pinch of salt. Reduce the heat to very low and cook, stirring constantly, until thick and smooth for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in two tablespoons of butter. Bring to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Stir in the lemon juice, vanilla and cinnamon. (Make sure the custard has cooled before continuing.) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Unroll one sheet of filo pastry and place it on a tea-towel for easy folding. Brush lightly with melted butter. Place three tablespoons of custard on the lower third of the pastry. Spread evenly nearly covering the lower third of the pastry. Fold the right and left sides of pastry towards centre so that edges just meet. Lightly brush the folded sides with butter. Fold the lower third up and brush with butter. Fold the upper third down, to form an envelope and brush with butter. Lightly brush the top and bottom of the custard filled 'envelope' with butter and place it on an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining filo pastry and filling. Bake until golden-brown for about 15 minutes. Serve warm, lightly dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon.

Archive

Editorial

Earlier this summer, the package tour operator Thomson announced that internet bookings had exceeded those taken in their high street stores. In just 10 years, the internet has come from nowhere to dominate the UK travel market.
Consider how far we have travelled by remembering how we used to book. Just 10 years ago, if you were particularly tech savvy, you booked your holidays through the cutting-edge technology of Teletext. But, in 1996, most of us chose to traipse down to town, find a travel agent that was open, queue up and then sit across a desk and watch a "holiday consultant" operate a huge computer terminal.
A decade on and so much is at our fingertips. Since the first travel web sites appeared in the summer of 1996, the amount of information available to us has risen as the price of getting there has tended to fall, while we have seen the take off of a fleet of internet-friendly, low-cost airlines that have made flying about as cheap as catching the coach.
The net result is that travel now feels less of a lottery because we, the consumers, feel more in control. 10 years of internet travel has made travel agents of us all.
Rather than going to travel agents, we use their online sites, or dispense with travel agents altogether by putting together our own tailor made holidays with cheap online flights and hotel bookings.
Initial fears about booking online have been allayed by the introduction of a glut of sites that enable you to get a really accurate idea of hotels and destinations across the world. Blogs and tools that search blogs, photo-sharing sites and video sites (for instance YouTube has a travel category) are becoming the places to go to research your next trip, not the high street travel agent.
Using the web to discover and discuss other people's experiences can help you decide where next to take a holiday. (As with everything on the web, you have to use your common sense reading "impartial reviews".)
With this in mind, here at Pelekas.com we are planning to add a section where you can post reviews of your stay in Pelekas. Hopefully this will be in place by October and as usual we will let you know by email.
Please take the time to add your thoughts, tips and recommendations as they will be invaluable to people planning their first visit.

Pelekas in 1911

We recently came across a book called "An Artist in Corfu", written and illustrated by Sophie Atkinson and published in 1911. This is what she had to say about Pelekas:

"The drive to Peleka is one that most visitors to Corfu achieve, for the way is beautiful, and from the crag-top over the village (“conveniently reached by a carriage road”) there is a wonderfully reprehensive view over the island. Peleka is on a conspicuous and narrow hill not far from the wonderful west coast. One over-looks its peaks and crags, its tiny bay and bold curves, far below through the olives, while eastward the whole middle reach of the island, from Spartile to tiny Kyria Ki and our mountains in the south, is spread below us: there are rolling hills crowned with villages: the bay, the town, and at our feet the Val di Ropa.

Being a show place, a German tourist will be found on the topmost crag, and six small but insistent children will beg. But our German lent us matches for our spirit lamp, and the children were only gently clamorous. And over the Straits it was so light and sunny that a rainbow could not have shown fairer colour.

So we make no complaint of Peleka."

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