Corfu 2011: Alexander Beach Hotel – St. George of Argurades

Alexander Beach Hotel

 I’ve just returned from my annual holiday to Greece – this year visiting the island of Corfu (Κέρκυρα), which I last went to over 13 years ago – when I was 5!

I was staying in the town of St. George South – Agios Geiorgos Arguradon (Άγιος Γεώργιος Αργυράδων) – as it is called in Greek, which means “St. George of Argurades” – Argurades being a village a few kilometres inland. This is to avoid confusion between another town with the same name in the North of the island.

Located near the Lake Korission (Λίμνη Κορισσίων), Ag. Geiorgios is very popular with the Germans (in fact Alekos who owned the hotel grew up in Germany, and his sister still lives there and was over for a couple of weeks on her holidays)!

Ag Geiorgos is more touristy than other areas of Greece I’ve been to (eg. Kamisiana in the county of Chania on Crete is extremely quiet with just a few bars and tavernas along the main road, and Sivota on the mainland is mainly Greek people on holidays), but even in high season it is possible to find quiet areas of the beach.

Whilst in Corfu I managed to stick mainly to speaking Greek – and I was surprised by how much Greek I could pick up by listening to other peoples’ conversations (and when they tries to speak Greek to Dad, thinking that he must be Greek because he looks Greek… :|)

There were a couple of times when we walked to Argurades, and had a drink in the old part of the village as well as a stop for photos at the church Ag. Ioannis and the viewpoint from where we could see the Lake of Korissia, which is behind the sand dunes of Issos beach near Ag. Geiorgos.

There are two good beaches in St George – sunbeds available, or if you walk beyond the sunbeds (although this can be quite a walk) you can get to the quieter bits. Both beaches are sandy and great for young childen.

Our hotel was the Alexander Beach Hotel – Ακτή Αλέκος (Καρτούτσης) – located at the quieter end of the village, not too far from two supermarkets – Stella and Esperando. There is a pool bar at the hotel itself (run by the owner, Alekos), which is open from about 07:00 to 19:00; there are a number of tavernas, bars and restaurants within walking distance as well.

We stayed self-catering, which meant we had a small kitchen within the room – this includes the normal basic cooking facilities you’d expect to find in Greece; a fridge, a kettle a couple of pots/pans and an electric ring. We normally had soup and a roll plus some crisps for lunch each day – in the evenings we ate out (as you should always do when on holiday in Greece).

In two weeks I visited: Paramonas, Prasoudi and Chalikounas beaches (West coast), the fishing village of Petriti and Notos beach (East coast) and Agios Godis (South South West coast). There was also a boat trip over to Sivota on the mainland (where I stayed in 2005/2008 for my holidays) and a coach trip to Aqualand waterpark.

I was there from Monday 25 July to Monday 8 August… and over the next few days I’ll be publishing various articles about the different places I visited whilst in Corfu. Keep an eye on the homepage of this website to get the latest articles; and don’t forget to go to fred-hart.co.uk/corfu2011 for the full archive.

FH, 09/08/2011 (15:55 EEST).

Fred Hart

Stock Controller and Radio Presenter/Producer

3 Comments

  1. can you tell me if you have the contact details for the alexander beach hotel at st george, either fax or email, as i travel out there next week for a holiday.

    many thanks

    Kevin

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