Corfu Photo Museum

Whoever likes to make photos, can have a great time on Corfu. However, if you like both photography and history, will enjoy the holiday in Corfu even more. In Lakones you will find a photo museum! The man behind this project is Vasillis Michalas, a well-known figure in western Corfu and beyond. Vasillis is not only one of the local taxi drivers, but also the curator of this photo history museum. Not wanting the recent past of Lakones to get lost, he asked the villagers for old photographs. To his own surprise, he was inundated by hundreds of memories in both sepia and black and white.

Magnificent collection of Corfu

Each visitor will be amazed at the large amount of beautiful photos that give us a clear picture of the activities of the former inhabitants of this village situated in the northwest of Corfu above Paleokastritsa. Photographs that had been taken at every important event that took place in or around Lakones - some by Vasillis himself - and carefully preserved. For example, there are photos from the early 50's with women in their traditional costume, all bearing a big boulder on their head. On their own initiative, these women were responsible for the construction of the first road from Lakones to the lower Paleokastritsa. Considering the weight per stone could be 50 pounds, it is a miracle that the Lakones people are not extinct, because these women must always have had a headache! If those sturdy women were headache free, they surely must have been too tired to reproduce!

Corfiots central in the collection

Moreover, there are many collages of celebrations, special events - most of them joyful, others disastrous. But especially pictures of people. Such lovely sepia-tinted photographs of villagers who look timidly into the lens. Why so sombre? Is it because many of the pictures were taken in a time when a camera was still fairly unknown or unloved or maybe on the other hand because the photographer told his victims not to laugh. Whatever the reason may be, many of the exhibited pictures would be ideal for a passport.
The present writer thinks the showpiece of the collection is surely the sparkling print of a famous Greek actress. They have even erected a simple shrine for her! What a grace, what a laugh, what a personality, what a life, what a charm, what a ... beauty! She has been dead for years, but anyone who has seen her image in this unique museum, will never forget her.
The photo museum Lakones can be visited by appointment. Call for an appointment with Vasilis Michalas: 26630 41269 or 694 4621938.

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