Corfu.

Corfu is the most layered of the Greek islands, and the layers are the whole point. Four centuries of Venice, a French interlude, half a century of British rule, all of it stacked on a green Ionian island that looks nothing like the bare Cyclades, and none of it visible from the beach strips where most visitors spend the week. They come for the resorts of the north and the package coast, get exactly that, and leave believing they have seen Corfu. They have not. The island still rewards the ones who leave the sunbeds: the UNESCO Old Town under its two Venetian fortresses, the arcaded Liston the French built and the cricket the British left behind, the palace an empress raised to her grief, the mountain interior and the abandoned Venetian village on Pantokrator's slopes, the coves below Paleokastritsa, the vast old olive groves, and a Corfiot table that tastes of none of its neighbours. This is that plan, set down plainly, the monuments and the mountains and the food that Venice, Paris and London each left a mark on, and at the end, the traps to skip. Twenty-five entries, each one chosen because it earns the detour. All of it free to read.

01

See

The Old Town, and why it is a UNESCO site

Corfu Town is the reason to come, and it is protected for good reason. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2007, the Old Town is the most complete surviving example of a fortified Venetian port city in the Mediterranean, four centuries of Venice written into a maze of tall, narrow streets, the kantounia, hung with washing and closed to cars. Venice built the fabric, France laid the arcades, Britain raised the palace, and the result is a European town that happens to sit in Greece, unlike anywhere else in the country. It is walkable in an afternoon and endless to wander, and the pleasure is in getting lost off the main shopping lanes into the quiet residential alleys where the light falls between shuttered facades. Start with no plan, keep the fortress at your back for bearings, and let the town do the leading.

The move  Walk the Old Town off the main shopping streets into the quiet kantounia, keep a fortress in view to find your way out, and give it an unhurried afternoon rather than a lap of the souvenir lanes.

Map  Corfu Old Town

02

See

The Old Fortress, out on its rock

On a rocky twin-peaked promontory east of the town, cut off from it by a sea moat, stands the Old Fortress, the Palaio Frourio, the Venetian sea castle that guarded Corfu against the Ottomans for centuries and never fell. Venice fortified the two peaks, the korifi that gave the island its Western name, and the fortress held through the great Ottoman sieges that broke against these walls. You cross the moat by a bridge, climb past the barracks and the British-built church of St George to the upper peak, and the reward is the finest view in Corfu, the Old Town spread below, the sea on every side, Albania across the strait. It is a proper climb in the heat, so bring water and a hat, and go early before the cruise crowd works its way out along the causeway. There is little shade at the top.

The move  Climb to the upper peak of the Old Fortress early in the day for the view over the town and the strait, carry water and a hat for the exposed climb, and beat the mid-morning cruise crowd out along the bridge.

Map  The Old Fortress

03

See

The New Fortress, the one most people miss

Rising over the western edge of the Old Town is the New Fortress, the Neo Frourio, the second and larger of the two Venetian strongholds, begun in the sixteenth century to close the landward approach the Old Fortress could not cover. It is new only by Corfiot standards, and it is the one the day-trippers skip, which is exactly its charm. The great sloping bastions and vaulted galleries are mostly empty, the ticket is small or the entrance sometimes free, and from the upper ramparts you look straight down over the tiled roofs of the Old Town and out across both harbours, a cleaner and quieter panorama than the Old Fortress gives, with almost nobody in it. The tunnels and casemates beneath the walls are cool and cavernous and worth the poke around. Give it half an hour on the way up from the old port.

The move  Climb the New Fortress for the rooftop view over the Old Town and the harbours, explore the empty vaulted galleries and tunnels beneath the bastions, and enjoy having the ramparts more or less to yourself.

Map  The New Fortress

04

Time it

The Liston, the Spianada and the cricket

Between the Old Fortress and the town lies the Spianada, one of the largest squares in Greece, a broad green the Venetians cleared as a field of fire before the walls and later turned into a promenade. Along its western edge runs the Liston, the elegant arcaded terrace of cafes the French built during their brief rule, modelled on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, its rhythm of stone arches the most photographed frontage on the island. And out on the grass, most weekend afternoons in summer, you will find something no other Greek square offers, a game of cricket, left behind by the British and played here ever since. Take a coffee under the Liston arches, watch the whites on the green, and understand Corfu in a single view, Venice at your back, Paris over your head, an English game in front of you. Sit for the show, but know the Liston coffee carries a premium for the seat.

The move  Take one coffee under the Liston arches for the setting, walk the length of the Spianada, and time a summer weekend to catch the cricket on the green, the clearest single scene of Corfu's three foreign rulers at once.

Map  The Liston and Spianada

05

See

Saint Spyridon, the saint the island runs on

Deep in the Old Town, under the tallest bell tower in Corfu with its red dome, stands the church of Saint Spyridon, and to understand the island you have to understand the saint. Spyridon is the patron of Corfu, credited by the Corfiots with saving the island from plague, famine and the Ottoman sieges, and his mummified body lies in a silver reliquary in a side chapel, brought here from Constantinople in the fifteenth century. Four times a year the relic is carried through the streets in a great litany that stops the town, and Corfiot families name so many sons Spyros that the name is almost a joke. Go in quietly between services, dress with shoulders and knees covered, and watch the steady file of locals who come to kiss the reliquary. This is not a museum piece; it is a living devotion, and it explains the island better than any monument.

The move  Step into Saint Spyridon between services with shoulders and knees covered, find the red-domed bell tower to locate it, and treat the queue at the reliquary as living faith rather than a photo stop.

Map  Church of Saint Spyridon

06

See

The Palace and the Asian Art Museum

At the northern end of the Spianada stands the Palace of St Michael and St George, a grand neoclassical building the British raised in the 1820s for their Lord High Commissioner, the seat of the protectorate that ran the Ionian Islands until they passed to Greece in 1864. It is a surprising thing to find in Corfu, a Regency palace of Malta stone with a colonnade and triumphal gates, and it holds a still more surprising thing inside: the Museum of Asian Art, the only museum in Greece devoted entirely to the art of the Far East, built from the collection of a Corfiot diplomat and now numbering thousands of Chinese, Japanese and other pieces. The pairing is pure Corfu, a British colonial palace full of Asian treasure. Give the collection an hour, and take a coffee afterwards in the cafe behind the palace, which has one of the best quiet sea views in the town.

The move  Tour the British-built Palace of St Michael and St George and give an hour to its Museum of Asian Art, then take a coffee at the quiet cafe terrace behind the palace for the sea view most visitors never find.

Map  Palace of St Michael and St George

07

See

The Achilleion, Sisi's palace of grief

In the hills at Gastouri, ten kilometres south of the town, stands the Achilleion, the palace Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the melancholy Sisi, built in 1890 as a retreat from a court and a life she could not bear. She named it for Achilles, filled its gardens with statues of the hero and the muses, and came here to escape after the suicide of her son. After she was assassinated in 1898 the palace passed to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who bought it in 1907 and summered here until the First World War, swapping her mournful Dying Achilles for a triumphant one of his own. The rooms are heavy with Habsburg sorrow and Prussian pomp, and the terraces and their statues look out over Kanoni and the sea. Go early or late to dodge the coaches, and give as much time to the gardens and the view as to the interior.

The move  Visit the Achilleion early or late in the day to miss the tour coaches, read the two Achilles statues as Sisi's grief and the Kaiser's ego side by side, and linger on the terraces for the view over Kanoni.

Map  The Achilleion

08

See

Kanoni, the Vlacherna monastery and Mouse Island

A short way south of the town, the headland of Kanoni gives you the postcard the whole island is sold on. Below the viewpoint, a slender white causeway runs out to the tiny convent of Vlacherna, a single chapel and its bell tower sitting almost on the water, and beyond it, on its own green islet, is Pontikonisi, Mouse Island, crowned with a Byzantine chapel among the cypresses. It is genuinely lovely and genuinely mobbed, and there is a catch worth knowing: Kanoni sits right under the flight path of the airport, so the calm is broken every few minutes by a jet coming in low over the lagoon, which is either the show or the spoiler depending on your mood. Come at first light or towards dusk for the softest view and the fewest people, walk out to Vlacherna, and take the little boat to Pontikonisi if the water is calm.

The move  See Kanoni at first light or dusk for the softest light and fewest crowds, walk the causeway to the Vlacherna convent, and take the small boat across to Pontikonisi in calm weather, planes and all.

Map  Kanoni and Vlacherna

09

See

Mon Repos and the ancient city of Paleopolis

On the wooded Kanoni peninsula, a short walk from the viewpoint, the villa of Mon Repos sits in a great overgrown estate that is one of the quietest and greenest escapes near the town. The house was built in 1828 for the British High Commissioner, later became a summer home of the Greek royal family, and is where Prince Philip, the future Duke of Edinburgh, was born in 1921. It is now a small museum, but the grounds are the real draw, shaded paths through the trees to the scattered ruins of Paleopolis, the ancient city of Corfu founded by the Corinthians in the eighth century BC, with the remains of temples and an early Christian basilica lying half-hidden among the greenery. It is cool, empty and free to wander for the most part, a rare thing in high summer. Bring water and good shoes for the paths, and give it a slow morning.

The move  Walk the shaded grounds of Mon Repos for the coolest quiet near the town, find the scattered Paleopolis ruins among the trees, and give the little museum in Prince Philip's birthplace a look before the heat builds.

Map  Mon Repos and Paleopolis

10

Walk

Mount Pantokrator and Old Perithia

The northeast of the island climbs to Mount Pantokrator, at 906 metres the highest point in Corfu, crowned by a monastery and, on a clear day, a view that takes in the whole island and the Albanian coast across the water. The road up is steep and narrow and the summit is cluttered with masts, but the height and the panorama are worth the drive. On the mountain's slopes lies the better reward: Old Perithia, the oldest village on Corfu, a cluster of Venetian stone houses that its people abandoned through the twentieth century for the coast below, leaving a near ghost village of hundreds of empty houses and old churches. A handful of families and a few tavernas have come back to it, so you can walk the silent lanes and then eat well in the middle of them. Combine the two in a morning, drive carefully on the mountain road, and eat in the village.

The move  Drive up Pantokrator in the morning for the island-wide view, take the narrow road slowly, then drop to Old Perithia to walk the abandoned Venetian lanes and have lunch at one of the few tavernas that have reopened there.

Map  Old Perithia and Pantokrator

11

See

Angelokastro, the cliff castle above Paleokastritsa

High on the sheer northwest coast above Paleokastritsa, on the highest peak of the island's shoreline, stand the ruins of Angelokastro, one of the oldest and most important Byzantine castles in Greece. Built on a rock so steep it needed little wall, it was for centuries the acropolis and refuge of the whole island, holding out against Ottoman sieges when the coast fell, and later a seat of Venetian command. Little is left but the shell, a ruined keep, a rock-cut church, cisterns and the outline of the walls, but the setting is the thing: a short, steep climb brings you to a platform with one of the great views in the Ionian, the coast falling sheer to the sea hundreds of metres below and the bays of Paleokastritsa laid out to the south. Wear proper shoes for the rough path, carry water, and go for the view as much as the stones.

The move  Climb to Angelokastro for the Byzantine ruin and the sheer coastal view, wear shoes with grip for the rough path, carry water, and pair it with a run down to Paleokastritsa below.

Map  Angelokastro

12

Beach

Paleokastritsa, done at the right hour

Paleokastritsa is Corfu's signature stretch, a run of green headlands and clear coves on the northwest coast, with a hilltop monastery looking down over the sea, and it is beautiful and busy in equal measure. By the middle of a summer day the main bays fill and the little jetties throng with the boat touts who run trips out to the sea caves. The place still earns its fame if you handle it right. Come early, before the coaches and the caiques, and swim off the quieter coves rather than the main organised beach. Walk up to the monastery, which is free and worth the climb for the view and the cloister. Take a boat to the caves and the hidden beaches by all means, but agree the price and the route first rather than following the loudest tout on the jetty. Then leave before the crush and eat somewhere inland.

The move  Take Paleokastritsa early, swim off the quieter coves not the packed main beach, climb to the monastery for the free view, and if you take a cave boat, fix the price and route before you step aboard.

Map  Paleokastritsa

13

Beach

Porto Timoni, reached on foot

The most striking beach on Corfu asks something of you first. Porto Timoni is a double bay, two curving beaches back to back on a narrow neck of land below the village of Afionas in the northwest, and you earn it with a walk. From the edge of Afionas a path drops down over loose stone and red earth for around half an hour to reach the twin coves, where you can swim in two seas from the same strip of sand. There are no facilities of any kind, no taverna, no shade, no sunbeds, so you carry in your water and food and carry out your rubbish. The clifftop viewpoint above, a short way from the village, gives you the famous symmetrical shot without the descent, if the walk is not for you. Wear real shoes, not flip-flops, go early to beat the heat on the way down and up, and take everything you need.

The move  Walk down to Porto Timoni from Afionas in the cool of the morning in proper shoes, carry all your water, food and shade since there is nothing there, and shoot the double bay from the clifftop viewpoint above on the way.

Map  Porto Timoni

14

Walk

The Corfu Trail, or a piece of it

Corfu is green in a way the Aegean islands never are, and the best way to feel it is on foot. The Corfu Trail is a long-distance waymarked path that runs the length of the island, some 180 kilometres from the far south to the far north, laid out in 2001 to stitch together the old footpaths through olive groves, villages and hills that the roads had left behind. Walking the whole thing takes ten days or so, and few holidaymakers do, but that is not the point. The trail is broken into stages, and any one of them, a morning through the olive terraces above the west coast, a stretch over the flank of Pantokrator, a village-to-village walk in the green interior, gives you a Corfu the beach crowd never sees. Pick a stage to suit your legs and the day, go in the cooler months or the cool hours, carry water, and let someone know your route.

The move  Walk one stage of the Corfu Trail rather than trying the whole thing, pick a section through the olive groves or the interior to your fitness, go early or out of high summer, and carry water and a map.

Map  The Corfu Trail

15

See

The Durrell trail at Kalami

On the quiet northeast coast, in the sheltered bay of Kalami, stands the White House, the plain waterside villa where Lawrence Durrell lived in the late 1930s and where his brother Gerald gathered the childhood that became My Family and Other Animals. The Durrell years on Corfu, before the war scattered the family, have become a small industry since the television series, and Kalami is the heart of it. The house still stands at the water's edge, now a taverna and holiday let, and you can eat on the terrace where Durrell wrote and swim off the rocks below in the same clear green water. It is a gentle, literary sort of pilgrimage, and the bay itself, ringed by cypress and olive, is one of the loveliest calm-water swims on the island. Come by car or on the coast boat, take a slow lunch, and read a chapter of Gerald on the terrace.

The move  Drive or take the coast boat to Kalami, eat a slow lunch on the terrace of the White House where the Durrells lived, and swim off the rocks in the calm green bay below.

Map  Kalami and the White House

16

Eat

Pastitsada, sofrito and bourdeto, ordered right

Corfiot food tastes of none of its neighbours, because four centuries of Venice left the island a different kitchen, one built on slow-cooked stews, spice and pasta rather than the plainer fare of the Aegean. Three dishes are the heart of it. Pastitsada is the Sunday dish, rooster or beef simmered for hours in a spiced tomato sauce heavy with cinnamon and clove and served over thick tubes of pasta. Sofrito is veal cooked gently in white wine, garlic and a great deal of parsley, a Venetian idea to its core. Bourdeto is the fisherman's dish, usually scorpionfish stewed in a fierce red sauce of onion, oil and hot red pepper that will clear your head. Ask a taverna which of the three they cook, and order the island rather than the moussaka the menu keeps for tourists. These are the dishes that make Corfu its own place at the table.

The move  Order the Corfiot classics by name, pastitsada or sofrito for the Venetian stews and bourdeto for the fiery fish, ask which the kitchen actually cooks that day, and skip the generic Greek menu.

Map  Old Town tavernas

17

Eat

A fish lunch at Agni Bay

On the northeast coast, a small pebble cove called Agni has become the island's byword for a long seaside lunch. Three tavernas sit almost on the water at the head of the bay, cooking fish and Corfiot dishes for a crowd that comes as much by boat as by the steep road down, and the point of Agni is the whole slow ritual: you arrive by late morning, take a table with your feet almost in the sea, order fish and a few mezedes and a carafe, and let the afternoon go. The rule for the fish is the rule everywhere in Greece and worth repeating, ask to see the catch, ask the price by the kilo before it is cooked, and take it grilled whole and simple. Agni is not cheap and not a secret, but the setting and the cooking earn it. Book ahead in season, and if you can, come the honest way, by the little coast boat rather than the hairpin road.

The move  Book a table at one of the Agni Bay tavernas for a long lunch, arrive by the coast boat if you can, and order fish the right way, seeing the catch and agreeing the price by weight before it is grilled.

Map  Agni Bay

18

Know

The Venetian olive groves and the oil

The green that makes Corfu look nothing like the Cyclades is largely one tree, the olive, and you have Venice to thank for it. Under Venetian rule the Republic paid Corfiots a bounty for every olive they planted, and the island filled with groves, millions of tall, ancient, untended trees that still cover the interior and the hills, many of them centuries old and grown to a great height Aegean olives never reach. The oil they give is the island's quiet staple, gentler and often greener than the mainland's, and it underpins the whole Corfiot table. You can visit an olive estate or a working press to taste it and learn the history, and a good bottle of Corfiot oil is one of the few souvenirs that is genuinely of the place and genuinely useful. Walk in an old grove in the low light and you understand the island's shade and its wealth in a single tree.

The move  Visit a Corfiot olive estate or press to taste the island oil and hear the Venetian bounty story, walk an old grove in soft light, and buy a bottle of good local oil to carry home.

Map  Corfu olive country

19

Drink

Kumquat and tsitsibira, the two colonial drinks

Corfu keeps two drinks the rest of Greece does not, and both arrived with foreign rulers. The kumquat, a tiny golden citrus, was brought to the island by a British botanist in the nineteenth century and took to the Corfiot soil so well that it became a local emblem, turned into a bright orange liqueur, a spoon sweet and a marmalade you will see in every shop window in the Old Town. The other is tsitsibira, a home-brewed Corfiot ginger beer, cloudy, sharp and lightly fizzy, a direct legacy of the British era and still made on the island the old way. Both are easy to dismiss as tourist tat, and both are the real thing when you find them well made. Taste the kumquat liqueur before you buy so you know a good one from a sugary one, and try a cold tsitsibira on a hot afternoon; there is nothing else like it in Greece.

The move  Taste the kumquat liqueur before buying to tell a good one from a syrupy one, pick up a jar of the spoon sweet, and try a cold tsitsibira, the British-legacy ginger beer, on a hot afternoon.

Map  Old Town shops

20

Drink

A proper Corfiot ouzeri, the slow way

The cheapest good hour on Corfu costs the price of a glass, and it is not in the harbour bars. Away from the fashionable fronts, in the back lanes of the Old Town and the village squares of the interior, the island still keeps the old ritual of ouzo or tsipouro taken slowly with a rolling procession of small plates, a little octopus, some noumboulo, the island's cured smoked pork, a few olives, a slice of cheese, tomato and bread, brought out as you drink rather than ordered all at once. Corfu also makes its own wine from the Kakotrygis grape, worth asking for by name where a taverna keeps it. There is no rush and no bill to fear; you sit, you talk, the plates keep coming, and the afternoon dissolves. Find a plain place with locals in it, order a small carafe and let the kitchen choose the meze, and you have understood the island better than a night on the strip will teach you.

The move  Find a plain ouzeri or kafeneio with locals in it, order a small carafe and let the meze come as it comes, ask for noumboulo and a glass of Kakotrygis, and give it a whole unhurried afternoon.

Map  Old Town back lanes

21

Do

The green interior, the villages nobody drives to

Almost everyone stays on the coast and almost nobody climbs into the middle of the island, which is exactly why the interior of Corfu is the quiet reward. Behind the beaches the land rises into a green, hilly country of olive terraces and cypress, threaded with old stone villages the tour buses have no reason to enter, places where the kafeneio under the plane tree still sets the rhythm and lunch is cooked for the people who live there. There is no single monument to name, and that is the point: you drive the small roads with no fixed plan, stop where a square looks good, eat the cheapest honest meal on the island, and find the Corfu the resorts have priced and packaged out of existence. Take a small car, a paper sense of direction and an afternoon, get comfortably lost in the hills, and let a village square decide your lunch.

The move  Give an afternoon to the green interior by car with no fixed plan, stop where a village square looks right, eat where the locals eat, and treat getting a little lost in the hills as the whole point.

Map  The Corfu interior

22

The rule

Getting in and getting around

Corfu is easy to reach and bigger than it looks, so plan the practicalities. The airport sits right beside the town, minutes from the Old Town but under a busy summer flight schedule, and the port takes ferries from Igoumenitsa on the mainland, a short crossing, and longer boats from Italy, which makes the island a genuine gateway as well as a destination. On the ground, the good things are spread wide, the town in the middle, Paleokastritsa on the west, Pantokrator and the Durrell coast in the northeast, the Achilleion and Kanoni to the south. Buses run between the main centres and are fine if you base yourself in the town, but to reach the interior, the northwest coves and the mountain villages on your own time you want a small hired car, booked ahead in August. Skip the quad bikes and buggies unless you truly ride; the coast roads are narrow, steep and busier than they look.

The move  Use the town as a hub, take buses if you stay put, but hire a small car booked ahead to reach the west coast, the interior and the northeast, skip the quad bikes, and mind the airport is close but under the flight path.

Map  Corfu port and town

23

Time it

The Old Town, timed around the cruise ships

Corfu is a busy cruise port, and on peak days several large ships berth at once and empty thousands of passengers into the Old Town for a few midday hours. The narrow lanes around Saint Spyridon and the Liston can go from atmospheric to a shuffling crush and back again within the same day, and the difference between the two Corfus is simply the clock. The ships tend to be in through the middle of the day and gone by late afternoon, so flip your day around them. See the fortresses, the palace and the church early, before the coaches and the ship crowd arrive, retreat to a beach or the hills through the hot, crowded midday, and come back to the Old Town in the evening once the ships have sailed and the lanes belong to the town again. A quick check of the cruise schedule before you plan a Town day is the cheapest tip in this guide.

The move  Check the cruise-ship schedule, do the Old Town's sights early before the ships disembark, escape to a beach or the hills over the crowded midday, and return in the evening once the ships have left.

Map  Corfu cruise port

24

Buy

The things worth carrying home

Skip the resort gift shops for the things the island actually makes. A bottle of good Corfiot olive oil from an island press is the souvenir that means the most and does the most, a direct taste of those Venetian groves. The kumquat comes in every form, and a jar of the spoon sweet or a bottle of a well-made liqueur, tasted before you buy, carries the island's oddest story home. A bottle of Corfiot wine from the Kakotrygis grape is a real rarity worth the room in the case. And the Old Town keeps a genuine craft tradition beyond the tat, so a piece of local ceramic or a small worked thing from a proper workshop beats a printed magnet. Buy from the presses, the grocers and the workshops in the town and the villages rather than the airport and the resort strips, where the price climbs and the quality thins.

The move  Carry home Corfiot olive oil, a jar of kumquat spoon sweet, a bottle of Kakotrygis wine and something from a real Old Town workshop, bought from the presses and grocers rather than the airport or the resort shops.

Map  Old Town shops

25

The rule

The trap to skip, and what to do instead

The single trap on Corfu is the one the package coast sells hardest: booking into a resort strip in the north or the west, spending the week on the sunbed and at the buffet, taking one coach tour to the Old Town in the midday crush, and leaving convinced you have seen the island. You will have seen the version built for the crowd, at the crowd's price, and missed the most layered island in Greece underneath it. The cure is the whole of this guide: give the UNESCO Old Town an early morning and a late evening, climb a fortress and Pantokrator, drive into the green interior and the mountain villages, walk down to a cove that asks for your legs, eat the pastitsada and the bourdeto a street back from the water. Do that and Corfu stops being a beach package and becomes what it actually is, Venice, Paris and London stacked on a green Ionian island that tastes and looks like nowhere else in the country.

The move  Give the resort strip as little of the week as you can, and spend the rest on the Old Town off-peak, the fortresses, the interior, the coves and the Corfiot table, which is where the real island is.

Map  Corfu