The town

The Old Town of Corfu was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2007. It is the only Greek town of this size that still keeps almost all of its historic buildings, and it sits between two fortresses.

The Old Fortress stands on a rock cut off from the town by a sea channel. The New Fortress rises behind it on a second hill. Both were designed by Venetian military engineers, and for four hundred years they held the entrance to the Adriatic against the Ottoman fleets. They were repaired again under the British in the nineteenth century.

Between them, the streets are narrow, tall and shaded, more Italian than Greek, and they open suddenly onto the Spianada — the largest square in the country. Along its western side runs the Liston, an arcade of French design built under Napoleon. Under Venetian rule, only families listed in the Book of Nobles were allowed to walk there. Today it is full of cafés.

A cricket pitch takes up much of the square. Corfiots have played the game since the British period, and they still do.

Saint Spyridon

The church of Agios Spyridon, with the tallest bell tower in the town, holds the body of the island's patron saint. It is carried through the streets four times a year.

The procession on Palm Sunday has been held since 1630, in memory of the plague that had struck the island the year before. It is the only one in which all eighteen philharmonic bands of Corfu take part. Three of them are based in the town, and their music is part of the town's identity in a way that has no parallel in Greece.

The British and the French

The French laid out the Spianada as a planted square and built the Liston. They also brought the potato to the island, introduced vaccination, and founded a school of fine arts.

The British built the Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George for their High Commissioners. It now holds the Museum of Asian Art, the only museum of its kind in Greece, with more than ten thousand objects from China, Japan and Thailand. They also founded the Ionian Academy, the first Greek university, whose building now houses the rectorate of the Ionian University.

Palaiopolis and the Achilleion

South of the town, on the Kanoni peninsula, lies Palaiopolis — the ancient city. Here stood the Temple of Artemis, one of the oldest large stone Doric temples in the Greek world, built in the sixth century BC. Its enormous Gorgon pediment is in the Archaeological Museum.

The estate of Mon Repos covers part of the ancient city. The neoclassical villa was built as the British High Commissioner's summer house and is open as a museum.

Further south, the Achilleion was built in the 1890s by Empress Elisabeth of Austria and dedicated to Achilles. It has statues, terraces and gardens looking down over the coast.

The middle and north of the island are quiet in a way the resorts are not.

Old Perithia, high on the slopes of Pantokrator, is the oldest surviving village on Corfu. Villagers built it up there to escape pirates and malaria, and they left it in the twentieth century for the coast. Stone Venetian houses and eight churches stand among the hills, and a few buildings have been restored and reopened.

Above Paleokastritsa, the villages of Lakones and Makrades sit on a ridge with a long view down over the bays. From Krini, a footpath climbs to Angelokastro, a Byzantine castle on a steep rock; it is about twenty minutes on foot from the road and the view is worth it.

Liapades, Giannades and Vatos, in the olive country of the west, are ordinary working villages with old mansions among the houses.

Corfu is covered in olive trees. The groves here are among the largest and oldest in Europe, and much of the interior is a continuous canopy of them, with cypresses standing through it.

The Corfu Trail

The Corfu Trail was created in 2001 and runs about 220 kilometres from Kavos at the southern tip to Cape Agios Stefanos in the north. It is waymarked throughout with yellow signs and paint marks, and most people walk it in eight to twelve days, though it splits easily into day sections.

The route crosses gorges in the north, olive hills in the middle, and dunes in the south, and it passes through villages where you can stay and eat.

Pantokrator and Korission

Mount Pantokrator, at around 900 metres, is the highest point on the island. A road goes to the top, and on a clear day you can see Albania, the Ionian islands and the Italian coast.

In the south, Lake Korission is a shallow lagoon separated from the sea by a sand bar. It is protected under Natura 2000, backed by dunes, cedars and reed beds, and flamingos stop there in spring.

Inland at Nymfes there are waterfalls in the woods, reached by a short dirt road and then on foot.

The two coasts are completely different.

The west is sandy and open to the Ionian, with long beaches below cliffs. Glyfada and Agios Gordios are the most organised, both wide golden sand with tavernas behind them. Myrtiotissa, between them, is smaller, harder to reach and used by naturists. Agios Georgios in the northwest is long and quiet.

The far south has the island's biggest expanse of sand: Issos and Halikounas run along the sand bar in front of Lake Korission, backed by dunes, and the wind there suits windsurfers.

The northeast is pebbles and clear deep water. Barbati, Nissaki and Kassiopi sit below wooded slopes with Albania across the strait, and the water is calmer than on the west.

Paleokastritsa, on the northwest coast, is a series of small bays between green headlands, with boats running out to sea caves.

Sidari in the north is known for its soft rock formations, cut into narrow channels by the sea.

The Corfu Golf Club, in the Ropa valley in the middle of the island, is an eighteen-hole course laid out among olive groves and a natural river, and it is the only course on the island.

Gouvia Marina, a few kilometres north of the town, is one of the largest marinas in Greece and the main base for sailing charters in the Ionian.

Corfu is also one of the better diving islands in Greece. Dive centres work out of Paleokastritsa, Ermones, Barbati, Kassiopi, Gouvia and Acharavi, and the west coast has caves, walls and reefs within a few minutes of the shore. The water off Paleokastritsa is clear enough to see thirty metres down. Boats run from the bay to the sea caves for those who only want to look.

Corfiot cooking is the most Italian in Greece, and this is not a figure of speech: most of the classic dishes have Venetian names.

Three of them define the island. Pastitsada is beef or rooster in a rich tomato sauce with spetsericο, a spice mix of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice and pepper, served with thick pasta. Sofrito is thin slices of veal, floured and lightly fried, then cooked in a white sauce of garlic, parsley, white wine and vinegar. Bourdeto is fish cooked with onion and a great deal of hot red pepper in a light red sauce.

Around them are bianco, fish in a white garlic and lemon sauce, savoro, fried fish preserved in vinegar with raisins and rosemary, and noumboulo, cured smoked pork.

The island grows kumquat, a small citrus brought here in the nineteenth century, which becomes liqueur, spoon sweet and marmalade. Mandolato is a soft white nougat with almonds, and mandoles are almonds in caramelised sugar.

And there is tsitsibira — ginger beer, made on the island since the British period and still sold cold in summer.

Corfu also has the best restaurant in the country. In the 2026 national gastronomy awards, a Corfiot restaurant took first place in Greece for the fourteenth year running, and two more restaurants on the island were among the forty-five best. For an island of this size, that is unusual.