Swathed in a blanket of deep green vegetation, its mountainous skyline subsiding into a crystal-clear, turquoise sea, Corfu is known as Greece’s Emerald Island. It is not only among the lushest of Greece’s myriad islands, but one of the prettiest as well. Flowering shrubs and trees cloak most of its rolling landscape, and in spring the island explodes in a beautiful wildflower display.
Corfu’s sunny beaches, spectacular scenery and charming capital have enchanted visitors – including many writers and artists – through the centuries. The wonderful clear light and stunning vistas of the island are thought to have been the inspiration for settings in Homer’s Odyssey and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In more recent times, the British writer and painter Edward Lear depicted many views of Corfu’s now famous sights, while the authors Lawrence and Gerald Durrell both lived here and wrote entertaining books about island life.
All Greek to me
Language is no problem for most visitors. Many locals speak English or Italian, and most signs are posted in both Greek and Roman characters.
Secluded resorts
Since the late 1970s, Corfu has become a popular British playground; for many years over half of the island’s holiday visitors came from the UK. No doubt early visitors felt at home in Kérkyra Town (Corfu Town) sipping ginger beer and watching cricket matches – both relics of British rule (1814–64) that can still be enjoyed today. The introduction of cheap package tourism in the 1980s gave Corfu something of a reputation as a ‘party island’. However, the party scene was always restricted to a few enclaves, and since the millennium some of those have mellowed considerably. Nonetheless, there are definitely still a few places that are best avoided by anyone who prefers the atmosphere of a Greek island to a rowdy British seaside town. Lately, however, numbers of central/eastern Europeans – Poles, Serbs, Russians, Czechs, Romanians and Bulgarians –plus Israelis, have risen sharply.
The dramatic beauty of the northeast coast
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In keeping with island character and scale, many resorts are small, quiet and secluded. Though development has been rapid on some parts of Corfu, it is still much less overbearing than in many other Mediterranean vacation destinations. There is only one high-rise horror (at Barbáti) and only the occasional large hotel, and actually, much of the island remains untouched by mass tourism. The main resorts are really crowded only in July and August and remarkably, even in peak season you can still find secluded places for sunbathing and hiking. You just have to make an extra effort (usually on foot or by boat) to get there.
The Listón, Kérkyra (Corfu) Town
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Location and size
Corfu is the most northerly of the Ionian group of islands. Just across the water to the east are Albania and the Greek mainland. Italy lies only 40 nautical miles to the northwest. To the south are delightful Paxí and the other Ionian islands (Lefkáda, Itháki, Kefaloniá, Zákynthos and Kýthira). However, island-hopping here is an option only for travellers with lots of time on their hands; it involves travel via the mainland.
Corfu is also Greece’s western gateway and has proudly styled itself ‘the entry to the Adriatic’. It is telling that the Ottomans – who conquered the rest of mainland Greece and Lefkáda among the Ionian Islands – failed to gain a foothold here. Instead, it was the great Western European powers of the day (Venice, France and Britain) that left their mark during five centuries of island occupation. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the elegant architecture and cosmopolitan atmosphere of Kérkyra Town. Where else in the world could you sit at a French-style café, amid Venetian streets, sipping Greek coffee while gazing at an English palace? This stylish capital is regarded as the loveliest town in all the Greek islands, and a visit here is a highlight of most visitors’ holidays.
In its shape Corfu resembles a scythe, measuring about 65km (40 miles) in length and ranging in width from 4km to 30km (2.5 miles to 19 miles). The island is the exposed crown of a submerged mountain range that broke off from the mainland to the east aeons ago. The highest point is Mt Pandokrátor, only a relatively modest peak of 914m (2,999ft), but on this relatively small island it takes on much more importance, and the summit is reached by an impressive ascent along steep hairpin bends.
Hire a car, if only for a few days, as you can very easily get around and explore the whole island. As you tour Corfu you’ll see undulating hills and stone terraces bordered by silvery groves of prized olive trees – venerable and gnarled. In the past they were an economic lifeline for the island, and still provide excellent olive oil and wood. The island is also graced with groves of kumquat and lemon trees (giving off a glorious aroma in spring), plane trees, jacaranda, palms, wisteria, myrtle and oleander. Even the simplest homes are adorned with verdant grape arbours and enormous, beautiful clusters of roses or bougainvillea. Most memorable of all are the groves of tall, slim cypresses rising like sentries on the hillsides.
Visit in spring or early summer, if possible, to see the best of the island’s flora: there are 100 native wild flowers alone that grow nowhere else. You might get a little wet then, but it’s a price worth paying. The reason for Corfu’s remarkably luxuriant vegetation is that more rain falls here – deflected by the nearby mainland mountains – than in any other part of Greece: typically 1m (39.4in) between October and June. However, during mid-summer this is very much an island in the sun.
Enjoying Barbáti beach, in the northeast
Kevin Cummins/Apa Publications
Clean beaches, casual living
Corfu has about 200km (125 miles) of coastline with some of Europe’s most beautiful and cleanest beaches. They vary from strips of pure golden sand to fine pea-gravel or bright white pebbles, and combinations of all three. While swells for surfing can be found on the western shores, there are plenty of calm bays suitable for all the family on the more protected east coast. As for the sea itself, in any one cove the range of clear blues seems to defy the colour spectrum. Don’t miss a day trip to the Diapóndia islets or Andípaxi, where the waters are as clear as those in the Caribbean.
Around 120,000 people live on Corfu. Some emigrate – attracted by life abroad or in the big mainland cities – but many never leave the island. Instead, the world comes to them, in increasing numbers that today reach one million annually. Yet despite the seasonal influx of visitors, the inhabitants on the whole retain a fresh, open simplicity that delights visitors.
Life on Corfu is casual and unhurried. For the punctilious northern European visitor it can sometimes be a bit too casual: waiting for a bus that is 20 minutes late (or never comes); the ‘fast-food’ souvláki, for which you have to queue for 15 minutes; the restaurant order that takes an eternity to arrive cold. Be patient and remember that nobody ever came to Corfu (or anywhere else in Greece, for that matter) for swift service, gourmet French food or impeccable plumbing. After all, the slow pace of life here is intrinsic to Greece’s appeal for most visitors.