Roda Naturally

Volume 2, Issue 1

March 2009

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Front Page

Corfu’s exceptionally green environment means that there are many species of wildlife, both migratory and native, that take advantage of the island’s unique features and location. One of the most visible of Roda’s creatures are the terrapins that congregate in the brackish water under the road bridge by the Afroditi hotel. Unusually, both native European

terrapins can be found here – the Balkan Terrapin and the European Pond Terrapin.

Both species have similar characteristics. The terrapins tend to emerge after hibernating in the soft mud at the bottom of the stream at the end of march. Eggs are laid in the sandy banks. It is the ambient temperature which decide the sex of the embryo terrapins. If there are high temperatures, then

female. Living on a diet of molluscs, crustaceans, aquatic insects and small fish, Roda’s terrapins put on a daily show for the summer visitors. With the consistently warm water temperatures throughout the summer months, the terrapins are able to breed successfully in one of the few streams that does not dry up completely. Being well supplied with water during the winter months, Corfu is one of the few Greek islands to offer these near-perfect conditions.

Roda’s Terrapins

Wisteria is a great favourite in Corfu and you will see this vigorous plant festooned over gateways and fences all around Roda, bringing its elegance to the village just in time for the biggest religious festival of the year. The

In Italy, Spain & France, wisteria is known as
‘glicine’, which in Greek
means ‘sweet plant’

Wonderful
Wisteria

One of the products we are all likely to use when visiting Greece is milk and we learned quite early on to use the word instinctively without ever thinking about its impact on the English language. The word, in Greek, is ‘gala’ – a simple, easily pronounced word that has no resemblance to the one we use in our native tongue. One dictionary lists as many as forty words that use ‘gala’ as a stem and many of them are

A Good Greek Word...

European Pond Terrapin

Balkan Terrapin

the hatch will be all male. Like-wise, with lower temperatures the clutch will be

fact that they flower at Easter, means that wisterias in Greece are eastern in origin and wisteria seeds were first brought back from China to Europe, in 1816, by an Englishman called Captain Welbank.
It is thought that, because of the earth’s rotation, northern hemi-

sphere plants twine in an anti-clockwise direction and southern hemisphere varieties do the opposite, but the curious thing is that Japanese wisterias wind themselves the wrong way. This is believed to be because Japan itself has moved slowly from the southern hemisphere to the north and the genetic makeup of the plant has not changed.

“Festooned over gateways and fences.”

In Italy, Spain & France, wisteria is known as ‘glicine’, which in Greek means ‘sweet plant’, but in Germany it has a wonderful name which translates as ‘blue rain’. In Corfu, it is known simply as ‘paska’ – the same name that is used for Easter itself, as it has become synonymous with this joyous time of the year.

is ‘galaxy’ – not just a bar of milk chocolate but a reference to what most of us know as the ‘milky way’.

Since learning a little Greek, our knowledge of other languages has taken on a completely new dimension and we find ourselves questioning many of the words we have always taken for granted. Perhaps it should have been the first choice in school as a second language.

medical terms related to milk production and the issues surrounding it, but the word most of us know in English