Corfu

Updated October 2026

Overview and Things to Consider

Corfu Town doesn't look like the rest of Greece, and that's the reason to come. Four centuries of Venetian rule, a short French spell and fifty years of British government left a walled port of tall, peeling apartment houses on lanes called kantounia, two fortresses, an arcade modeled on the Rue de Rivoli, and a cricket pitch in the middle of the main square. The old town has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2007. About 40,000 people live in the municipal unit, two-fifths of the island.

You'll love it if you want a real town with an island attached, if you like your history layered rather than ancient, or if you're heading into Albania or up the Adriatic and need a base. You'll hate it if you want the whitewashed Cyclades, if you came for a quiet beach on a bus budget, or if you can't stand sharing a lane with a few thousand people off a ship. The beaches are spread around a 217-kilometer coastline, and the good ones on the northeast coast are mostly lined with villas.

The 2026 moment is a strained one. The port expects 562 cruise calls and about 998,000 passengers this year, up 20.3 percent. Record rain in February split a coastal road at Arillas, then the government declared a three-month water emergency in March, and in September rubbish collection stopped across part of the south after the Court of Audit ruled the municipality's contract unlawful. None of that will spoil a week in the old town. It should change where you stay and when you walk.

The overrated stuff is easy to name. Sidari's Canal d'Amour is a sea tunnel in a cove, fine for half an hour and not worth a day, and Kavos exists for young British and northern European holidaymakers. The Achilleion is mostly closed for restoration. Spend that time in the old town after the ships leave.

How Corfu Got Here

Ancient Korkyra was a Corinthian colony that became one of the three great naval powers of fifth-century BC Greece, and its quarrel with Corinth at the Battle of Sybota helped start the Peloponnesian War. The ruins of that city, the Palaiopolis, lie south of town under the woods of Mon Repos, the villa where Prince Philip was born on June 10, 1921. After the Ostrogoths sacked the old city in 551, the town moved north onto the peninsula, and its twin peaks of the citadel, koryphai in Greek, gave the island its Western name.

Venice held Corfu from 1386 to 1797 and made it the keystone of its defenses against the Ottomans, who besieged it in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716 and never took it. That's why Corfu is one of the few parts of Greece the Ottomans never ruled, and why the town feels Italian. The French built the Liston arcade in 1807, Britain took over in 1815 and ran the Ionian Islands until handing them to Greece in 1864, leaving the Palace of St. Michael and St. George, ginger beer and cricket. ICOMOS found that about 70 percent of the old town's pre-20th-century buildings date from the British period.

The Second World War did the most damage. Italy occupied the island in April 1941, and on September 14, 1943, German bombing destroyed whole blocks, including much of the Jewish quarter of Evraiki, the Ionian Academy and the Municipal Theatre, which had replaced the San Giacomo, Greece's first opera house, as the town's stage in 1902. In June 1944 the Gestapo held the city's Jews in the Old Fortress and deported them to Auschwitz. About 200 of some 1,900 escaped. Jet airliners and cheap package holidays then made Corfu one of the first big mass-tourism islands, and that shaped the coast you see now.

Getting There and Around

Corfu International Airport, Ioannis Kapodistrias (CFU), sits about 2 kilometers south of town and half a kilometer north of Pontikonisi, the islet on every postcard. Its main terminal was finished in 1972, and Fraport Greece has run it since a privatization deal signed in December 2015. Traffic peaks between April and October, when budget and charter carriers fly in from across Europe, and Aegean flies to Athens year-round. The airport handled 4.34 million passengers in 2024 and 4.59 million in the first eleven months of 2025. Nothing flies in from outside Europe and Israel, so from North America or Australia you connect in Athens or a European hub.

Getting into town is cheap if you take the bus. Blue line 15 of Corfu City Bus runs from the airport past the green intercity bus station and San Rocco Square to the port. It's a Zone A ride, €1.30 from a kiosk under the current fare table (the line's own page still shows €1.10), or €1.70 bought on board. The timetable from September 14, 2026 has buses leaving the airport every 20 to 30 minutes from 07:05, through to the port until 21:30 and to San Rocco until 23:50. The airport is only 2 kilometers out, so a taxi is a short ride. Corfu taxis have meters, but Wikivoyage contributors report drivers quoting a fixed price well above the meter to tourists and pairing two groups in one car without asking, so agree the price or insist on the meter before you get in. Keep the radio taxi number, +30 26610 33811.

Entry follows Schengen rules. Americans, Britons, Canadians and Australians can stay up to 90 days in any 180 without a visa, and EU citizens just walk through. Your passport must have been issued less than ten years before you arrive and remain valid three months after you leave the Schengen area. The EU's biometric Entry/Exit System has run at every Schengen border since April 10, 2026, so expect fingerprints and a photo on your first entry and longer lines at the airport and port, although the UK government says Greece has indicated it won't collect biometrics from British travelers. ETIAS, the €20 online authorization for visa-free visitors, is scheduled for 2027 and isn't required yet.

Arriving by sea is the more interesting route. Kerkyra Lines alone lists 11 daily departures to Igoumenitsa on the mainland, from 06:30 to 20:00. Ferries from Saranda in Albania land at the New Port, and Superfast lists Corfu sailings to Ancona, Bari and Venice. The green KTEL buses connect Corfu Town daily with Athens and Thessaloniki as well as running around the island.

Inside the walls you walk, because many of the kantounia are too narrow for cars. The blue city buses leave from San Rocco Square, with Zone A tickets at €1.30, Zone B at €1.80 and a day ticket at €5 from the kiosks and machines, which take cards. A first paper ticket from a machine comes as a pack of at least four rides, so buy singles at a kiosk. Line 2A goes to Kanoni and Pontikonisi, line 10 to the Achilleion about ten times a weekday and five on Sundays, and line 7 to Dassia and Ipsos every 20 minutes on weekdays. Green buses leave from the station near the New Port for Palaiokastritsa, about 50 minutes for €2.80, and Kassiopi, about 1 hour 15 minutes for €4.30.

What's Changed Since 2016

April 2016 to May 2019: ITV's The Durrells, based on Gerald Durrell's memoirs of his family's 1935 to 1939 years on the island, ran for four series and was partly filmed on Corfu. His brother Lawrence had already written his own Corfu book, Prospero's Cell, and the northeast coast where the family's story plays out became a place British viewers had watched for four years.

December 2015 to 2025: the airport was privatized to Fraport Greece in a deal signed in December 2015, and passenger numbers climbed from 3.75 million in 2022 to 4.34 million in 2024 and 4.59 million in January to November 2025, with the UK alone accounting for 1.31 million in 2023, against an island population of about 99,000.

2025 to 2026: staying and docking both cost more. Greece's climate resilience fee for April to October was raised for 2025 to €2 a night at one- and two-star hotels and rented rooms, €5 at three-star, €10 at four-star and €15 at five-star hotels and villas. The new cruise passenger fee announced at the same time is €5 a head at islands other than Santorini and Mykonos from June to September, and €4 in April, May and October. And the Entry/Exit System replaced passport stamps on April 10, 2026.

February to March 2026: the island had its heaviest rain in 50 years in February, and a coastal road at Arillas split in two. Then on March 20, 2026, the government declared a three-month state of emergency over water supply, blaming aging pipes, big network losses, peak-season demand and years of lower rainfall. If your rental asks you to go easy on water, that's why.

2026: the port scheduled 562 cruise calls for the year, a 20.3 percent jump, with about 998,244 passengers and more than 70 calls a month from May through September, plus 119 calls in October to December as the port tries to stretch the season. On September 8, 2026, rubbish collection by the municipality's private contractor stopped after the Court of Audit ruled the contract unlawful, and garbage piled up in southern villages including Agios Matthaios, Moraitika and Argyrades.

2025 to 2026: Erimitis, one of the last big undeveloped stretches of the northeast coast between Avlaki and Agios Stefanos, changed hands again. The 2020 plan for a five-star hotel, up to 40 villas and a 57-berth marina has given way to a smaller scheme from a group linked to Calamos Investments, reported as 20 percent less construction with no marina. No full master plan had been published by September 2026.

What the Usual Advice Gets Wrong

"Spend a morning touring Empress Sisi's Achilleion palace." As of October 2026 the Achilleion's own ticket site says only the outdoor spaces and the Imperial Gardens are open, because of restoration work, for a €7 general ticket. You'll see the Dying Achilles statue and the view, not the rooms. Go if you're passing on blue bus 10, and don't build a day around it.

"Corfu Town is a half-day stop. See the fortress and the Liston, then head to the beach." That's the cruise passenger's version, and in 2026 almost a million people will do it. The town is best in the early morning and after the ships sail in the evening, when the Liston fills with locals and the lanes empty out. Stay at least two nights in or near the walls.

"Rent a quad bike, it's the fun way to see the villages." A British father died and his 15-year-old son was critically injured when their rented quad left the road in May 2026, and the mayor called for tighter rules. The UK government warns that many travel policies exclude quads, hire insurance is usually third-party only, and a moped needs at least an A1 license. Rent a small car instead.

"Corfu is spoiled, there's nothing Greek left." Wikivoyage says roughly that, and on the resort strips it's fair. But Corfu was never typical Greece. Its Venetian dishes, its 19 philharmonic bands and its Easter, the most famous in the country, are local, and Old Perithia, the island's oldest village, sits 130 houses and eight churches deep under Mount Pantokrator, protected as a heritage site.

"Book a tour if you want to see Albania." You don't need one. Ionian Seaways runs up to 13 daily departures to Saranda from July to September and at least one a day all year, 30 to 45 minutes by hydrofoil. Bring your passport, arrive an hour early, and remember Albania is an hour behind Corfu. Butrint is 14 kilometers south of Saranda.

Ideas to Consider for Your Visit

Have you thought about Easter here? Corfu's Holy Week is the most famous in Greece, and it runs on music. The town's three philharmonic bands, the Old Philharmonic of 1840, the Mantzaros and the Capodistria, play different funeral marches behind the Good Friday processions. On Holy Saturday morning they walk with the relics of St. Spyridon, a custom that began when British administrators barred the garrison band from the Good Friday procession and Corfiots answered with a Saturday litany. At exactly 11:00 people drop huge clay pots of water from the balconies, so stand where the police tell you.

Climb Mount Pantokrator, at 906 meters the island's highest point, from Old Perithia. The round trip on foot takes about two hours, and from the top you look straight across the strait at Albania and, on clear days, as far as Italy, 130 kilometers off. The monastery church on the summit dates from about 1689. If you want more, the Corfu Trail runs about 200 kilometers, roughly ten days on foot, from near Kavos in the south to the Agia Ekaterini headland in the north, and passes through Old Perithia.

Take green bus A9 to Palaiokastritsa, 50 minutes and €2.80, where tradition puts Odysseus's landing in the bay below a monastery founded in 1225. Then walk up to Angelokastro, the Byzantine castle on a cliff about 1,000 feet above the sea. It never fell, and from 1387 to the end of the 1500s it was the island's official capital.

Eat the Corfiot dishes the Venetians left behind. Pastitsada is beef, rooster or rabbit braised in spiced tomato sauce over bucatini, sofrito is thin-sliced beef in garlic, white wine and vinegar, and bourdeto is scorpionfish in a fiery red pepper sauce. Wikivoyage points to Taverna Ninos at Sevastianou 44, just off the main shopping lanes, for the everyday versions. Then order tsitsibira, the island's ginger beer, on the Liston, and take home a bottle of kumquat liqueur.

Give Paxos a night. Kerkyra Lines lists Corfu to Paxos departures at 10:30 and 15:00 but returns from Paxos only at 8:00 and 12:45, so on its boats a day trip leaves you barely any time ashore. The island, 15 kilometers off Corfu's southern tip, is small enough to see Gaios and a few coves in a day. In Greek myth Poseidon made it by striking Corfu with his trident so he and Amphitrite could get some peace.

Go south to Korission Lagoon, 427 hectares of brackish water behind Chalikouna Beach near Agios Matthaios. It's a Natura 2000 site with sand dunes over 15 meters high, a rare juniper forest, 14 species of orchid and more than 126 bird species, flamingos among them. Check the rubbish situation in the southern villages before you go.

The Part Most Guides Miss

The music. Most guides mention the Venetian lanes and skip the sound that fills them. Corfu has 19 philharmonic marching bands, the oldest founded in 1840, and they give free music lessons, so many of the players marching past the Liston in plumed helmets are young recruits. The San Giacomo, Greece's first opera house, staged its first opera in 1733, and from 1771 to 1943 nearly every major Italian opera played there before German bombs gutted it. The rivalry is still alive, too. At Easter the Old Philharmonic in dark blue finishes outside its building and the Mantzaros, the New, marches up and salutes it with the same tune. Turn up on a feast day such as August 11, the litany of St. Spyridon that Venice established after the 1716 siege, and you'll hear it.

Where to Base Yourself

The old town (Campiello, Spianada and the Liston). The pick if this is a town trip. Everything is on foot, from the Old Fortress to St. Spyridon's church, built in 1589 and topped by the tallest bell tower in the Ionian Islands, and line 15 runs to the airport. The catch is noise and cruise crowds by day, and there's no hostel here. Hostelworld's nearest dorm is 3.6 kilometers out.

Garitsa and Kanoni. South of the walls along the seafront promenade of Garitsa Bay, with Mon Repos and the Palaiopolis next door and blue line 2A out to the Pontikonisi viewpoint. It suits people who want quieter nights and a waterfront walk into town. The catch is that it sits close to the airport runway.

The northeast coast (Kassiopi, Kalami, Agios Stefanos). Clear, calm water, the Durrell coast and the closest views of Albania. Kassiopi is about an hour and 15 minutes from town on green bus A4 for €4.30, and the coves around it are where the villas are. It suits couples and families with a rental car. Without one, you'll spend a lot of time at bus stops.

Agios Gordios. The budget base, on the west coast about 10 kilometers from town. The Pink Palace and Corfu Backpackers Beach Hostel both list dorms here, from about US$20 to $25 on Hostelworld, and the beach faces the sunset. It's a beach village rather than a town, and trips into Corfu Town take planning.

Realities to Be Aware Of

Budget is what decides your base. A shoestring day here means a dorm at US$20 to $34 (about €18 to €30) outside town plus €2.80 to €4.30 bus fares to reach anything, and you'll eat at gyros counters and bakeries. Mid-range in town means a two- or three-star hotel plus a climate resilience fee of €2 to €5 a room per night from April to October. Comfortable means a four- or five-star or a villa in the northeast, a rental car and €10 to €15 a night in fees on top. Bus ticket machines and kiosks take cards.

The real risks are on the road and in the sun, not in the street. The UK government warns that quad bikes cause serious injuries and deaths every year, that helmets are mandatory, and that drunk driving is punished with fines and possible prison. Roads in the north and the interior are narrow and potholed, and Wikivoyage warns that rental insurance often excludes damage to the underside of the car. Wildfire risk runs from April to October, lighting fires outdoors is illegal, and the UK government says not to light barbecues. Register your phone for 112 alerts.

Know the rules if you're heading to Kavos, the party resort at the southern tip. Greek police arrest people for rowdy or indecent behavior, the UK government warns that some fancy-dress costumes can break decency laws, and bars can't serve anyone under 18. Thefts happen in crowds, so keep bags closed on cruise-heavy mornings in the old town and at the port.

Same-sex marriage has been legal in Greece since February 16, 2024, and the UK government notes that attitudes are generally welcoming on many islands but more reserved in rural areas, which fits Corfu's village interior.

The crowd pattern follows the ships and the flights. Cruise passengers fill the old town from mid-morning to late afternoon on busy days, with more than 70 calls a month from May to September, and the port authority publishes its cruise schedule, so check it before you plan your old-town day. Airport traffic runs heaviest from April to October. In the south, check whether rubbish collection has resumed before you book. It had stopped in September 2026.

If Corfu Is Part of a Longer Trip

Corfu is the natural door to Albania. Ionian Seaways runs to Saranda all year, once a day in deep winter and up to 13 times a day in summer, 30 to 45 minutes by hydrofoil or about an hour by car ferry, and it carries private cars if you clear customs an hour early, though rental cars from Corfu aren't allowed. Americans can stay in Albania visa-free for a year, while EU, British, Canadian and Australian passports get 90 days. From Saranda, Butrint is 14 kilometers south, Gjirokastër 55 kilometers north, and buses run up the coast toward Tirana. Albania isn't in Schengen, so days there don't count against your 90.

For the Greek mainland, the Igoumenitsa ferries leave roughly hourly in the morning, and the green KTEL coaches run through to Athens and Thessaloniki. Going north, you can link Corfu with Albania's coast and then Montenegro and Dubrovnik by land. Going west, Superfast lists Corfu sailings to Ancona, Bari and Venice, which opens up the Italian Adriatic and the road south to Naples.

The trap is sequencing. Albania runs an hour behind Corfu, the Saranda ferry thins to one sailing a day from November 11, and the Entry/Exit System means a possible biometric check each time you re-enter Schengen at Corfu port. If you're stringing Corfu, the Balkans and Italy into one longer journey with flights at either end, AirTreks can build open-jaw and multi-stop tickets so you don't backtrack to Corfu to fly home.

Yearly Things to Consider

Two calendars drive Corfu, and neither is the weather. The flight season runs April to October, when the charters and budget carriers fly, and the cruise season peaks May to September, with more than 70 ship calls a month. July and August highs average 88 to 89°F (31 to 32°C), with almost no rain. Then the rain arrives with force. October averages 5.5 inches and November and December about 7.4 to 7.5, which keeps the island green when the Aegean islands are brown.

The counterintuitive move is late April to early June, or mid-September to mid-October. Orthodox Easter usually falls in April or early May, the May rain averages just 1.4 inches, and the Saranda ferry already runs four to seven times a day. Early October still has 74°F (23°C) highs and twelve ferries a day to Albania until the 15th, but the port has scheduled 119 cruise calls for October through December, so the old town won't empty out as fast as it used to.

Ideas for Itineraries

3 Days in Corfu

Day one is the old town on foot, starting early before the ships. Walk the Old Fortress, then St. Spyridon's church, the Campiello lanes and the Museum of Asian Art in the Palace of St. Michael and St. George, and finish on the Liston with a ginger beer. Day two, take blue line 2A to Kanoni for Pontikonisi, walk back through Mon Repos and the Palaiopolis, and eat pastitsada in the evening. Day three, take the green bus to Palaiokastritsa, climb to Angelokastro, and come back for sunset on the walls.

5 Days in Corfu

Do the three-day version, then spend day four in Albania. Take an early Ionian Seaways hydrofoil to Saranda, get to Butrint 14 kilometers south, and come back on an evening sailing, remembering the hour's time difference. From November 11 to early March there is only one sailing each way, so this works April to early November. On day five, take green bus A4 to Kassiopi, go on to Kalami and swim in the calm water of the northeast coast before the bus back to town.

1 Week in Corfu

Rent a small car for the second half. Spend three nights in the old town doing the three-day plan, then move to the northeast coast. Climb Pantokrator from Old Perithia one morning, spend a night on Paxos, out on the 15:00 Kerkyra Lines sailing and back at 8:00 or 12:45, and drive south to Korission Lagoon for the dunes and birds. Keep the last night in town so you're close to the airport, and check the cruise calendar so your final old-town walk falls on a quiet day.

2 Weeks or More in Corfu

Settle into Garitsa or the old town for the first week, with a day ticket on the blue buses, and learn the town properly: the Jewish quarter of Evraiki, the Byzantine Museum in the Antivouniotissa church, a cricket match on the Spianada, an evening band concert. Week two, walk a few stages of the Corfu Trail, staying in villages along the way, or base yourself on the northeast coast with a car. For weekends away, take the ferry to Saranda and on to Gjirokastër, 55 kilometers north.

Sources

What this guide is built on. Every page below was read for this guide; prices and rules were checked in October 2026.

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