Corfu

What Corfu actually is

Corfu sits at the top of the Ionian Sea, closer to the heel of Italy and to Albania than it is to Athens, and it looks almost nothing like the Greece most people carry in their heads. There are no white cubic villages on bare brown hillsides. Instead there are somewhere around three million olive trees, planted in dense stands under Venetian rule, cypresses standing up through them like exclamation marks, and in April and May a green so heavy it startles anyone who arrived expecting Aegean rock.

That green has a cause, and the cause is rain. Corfu takes roughly 1,100 millimetres of rainfall in a normal year. That is close to three times what Athens gets and several times what falls on Santorini or Kos. Almost all of it arrives between October and April, so it will not ruin a July holiday, but it is the whole explanation for the landscape, and it changes how the shoulder months behave. A wet week in early May is unlucky rather than unheard of, and if you want a cast-iron guarantee of sun in the first half of the season, the Aegean islands are the safer bet. What you get in exchange is an island that is still lush in September, when much of Greece has gone the colour of a paper bag.

The other thing that sets Corfu apart is that the Ottomans never took it. Four sieges failed. So instead of the layers you find on Crete or Rhodes, Corfu has four centuries of Venice, a short French interval, and fifty years as a British protectorate until 1864. The town has arcades that could be in Italy, a cricket pitch in the middle of it, and a locally brewed ginger beer that the British left behind and nobody thought to stop making.

Corfu Town, and why you should consider sleeping in it

Most island destinations have a town you visit for one evening. Corfu has one you can happily base a whole holiday in, and a surprising number of people wish they had.

The old town is a UNESCO site and it earns it. Two Venetian fortresses, one at each end. The Liston, a colonnade built by the French and modelled on the Rue de Rivoli, facing a wide green called the Spianada where they still play cricket. Behind that, a grid of tall narrow streets called the Campiello, six storeys high in places, with washing strung between the shutters. And the church of Saint Spyridon, whose silver reliquary holds the island's patron saint and draws Orthodox pilgrims all year.

Hotel stock in town is small: boutique conversions of Venetian townhouses, a handful of larger properties on the fringes, almost nothing all-inclusive. You are choosing atmosphere, restaurants you can walk to, and the ability to leave the car parked. You are giving up a big pool and a beach on your doorstep. For couples, for a short first trip, or for anyone who finds a resort strip depressing, it is the right call.

The east coast: calm water, short drives

Everything from Gouvia north through Dassia, Ipsos, Barbati, Nissaki and Kalami to Kassiopi faces the Albanian mainland across a narrow channel. That channel is why the water here is flat. There is no ocean fetch, so on most mornings the sea is glass, which is exactly what you want with small children or if you would rather paddle a kayak than fight a shore break.

The trade-off is that the beaches are mostly shingle and pebble rather than sand, and they are narrow. Barbati and Nissaki are beautiful and stony. Kalami is the bay where the Durrell family lived, still small, still lovely, and busier than it was. Kassiopi at the top is a proper village with a harbour and enough tavernas to keep a week interesting.

This coast holds most of the family hotel stock and most of the half-board four-stars, and it is where our east-coast price anchor comes from.

The north: sand, and the package-holiday belt

Sidari, Roda and Acharavi run along the north coast and this is where the sand is. Sidari has the Canal d'Amour, a set of eroded sandstone fingers that photograph better than they swim, and a long strip of bars aimed squarely at the mid-market package trade. Acharavi is calmer and flatter and works well for families who want sand plus a supermarket.

The water on the north coast is shallow a long way out, which is a genuine advantage with toddlers and a genuine annoyance if you like to swim properly.

The west: the dramatic half

Cross the island — it is only about 30 kilometres wide at the top and much less further south — and everything changes. The west coast has cliffs, real surf on a windy day, and the sunsets. Paleokastritsa is the postcard: a set of green headlands folding into turquoise coves, a monastery on the point, boat trips to sea caves. Glyfada and Agios Gordios are proper sand beaches backed by cliffs. Myrtiotissa below its monastery is famously hard to reach and famously clothing-optional. Porto Timoni near Afionas is two back-to-back beaches on an isthmus, twenty minutes downhill and a good deal longer back up. At Peroulades the sun goes down off a cliff edge and half the island drives over to watch.

Understand what you are choosing. The west is scenically the best of Corfu and the sea can be rough for two or three days at a stretch when the wind swings northwest. There are fewer big hotels and more small ones, and you will want a car.

The south, and the honest warning about Kavos

The south of the island is flatter, has the Korission lagoon and the long sands of Issos and Agios Georgios, and ends at Kavos.

Kavos is a young British drinking resort. That is not a snobbish description, it is what the place is built for and what it advertises: cheap bars, clubs open until dawn, an eighteen-to-twenty-two crowd out for exactly that. If you are twenty and that is your holiday, it is efficient and it is cheap. If you are travelling with children or you want to sleep, it is a mistake that is very hard to undo once you have flown. Every season somebody books Kavos on price alone. The neighbouring village of Agios Georgios South is a completely different, quiet proposition twenty minutes away, and Lefkimmi up the road is a working town with almost no tourism at all.

Hotel stock and what your money buys

Corfu sells mainly three and four star half-board and bed-and-breakfast hotels, with a decent layer of five-stars on the northeast coast and around Kommeno. All-inclusive exists but is thinner than on Crete or Rhodes, and the good all-inclusive properties are concentrated on the east and north coasts.

The 62 EUR per person per night anchor buys a solid four-star on the east coast with half board in May, June or late September. In the first two weeks of August the same room is commonly double and the five-stars on the northeast run several times that. Villas are a serious part of the market here in a way they are not on most Greek islands, particularly inland and above Kassiopi, and for a group of six or eight they are frequently better value than hotel rooms.

Getting there and getting around

Corfu International Airport, code CFU, is unusual in that it is barely outside the town — around three kilometres, so a transfer is a matter of minutes rather than an hour. The approach runs low over the Chalikiopoulou lagoon past Kanoni, which is the reason people photograph landings here.

Charter and low-cost flights run from across northern Europe from April to October and thin out sharply in winter. Off season you connect through Athens. Ferries cross to Igoumenitsa on the mainland in about ninety minutes, and hydrofoils reach Sarandë in Albania in roughly half an hour, which makes a day trip to Butrint realistic if your paperwork allows it.

We should be plain about one thing. We quote your accommodation through partner agencies, and any transfer or car hire on Corfu is arranged locally. Our own vehicles and drivers have operated in Turkey since 2016 and nowhere else, and we would rather say so than let you assume otherwise.

Do you need a car?

On the east coast, not necessarily — the coastal buses are reasonable and the resorts are close together. Anywhere else, yes. The west coast beaches, the mountain villages around Pantokrator, Porto Timoni and the sunset points are not usefully served by public transport. Roads are narrow, steep and often edged with olive trunks, so take the smallest car you can live with.

When to go

April and early May are the island at its greenest, with wildflowers and cool nights. The sea is still cold and some hotels have not opened.

Late May and June are the best all-round window. Everything is open, the greenery is still there, the sea is swimmable and prices are well short of peak.

July and August are hot, full and expensive, with the first fortnight of August the worst of it for both crowds and rates.

September is excellent: warm sea, thinner crowds, and the island still green because of all that winter rain.

October works into the middle of the month, then flights and hotels start shutting. November to March is a wet, quiet, largely closed island, and Corfu is the wettest place in Greece in that period.

Food, and the parts that are not standard Greek

Corfiot cooking is genuinely different because of the Venetian centuries. Sofrito is veal in a garlic, parsley and vinegar sauce. Pastitsada is rooster or beef in a spiced tomato sauce over thick pasta. Bourdeto is fish stewed hard with red pepper. Kumquat, brought in under the British, turns up as liqueur and as a spoon sweet in every gift shop. Tsitsibira is the local ginger beer and is a direct British leftover.

Corfu Easter is the biggest event of the island's year. On Holy Saturday morning people throw large clay pots from the balconies of the town onto the street below, and the noise and the crowds are extraordinary. Prices that week behave like August.

Who should skip Corfu

If you want guaranteed cloudless weather in early May, choose a Cycladic or Dodecanese island instead. If your idea of a beach is fine sand shelving gently for a hundred metres, the east coast will disappoint you and you should look at the north coast or a different island entirely. If you will not drive and you want to see the west, the logistics will beat you. And if you are booking for a family, avoid Kavos with real determination.

Getting a real price

The distance between a June half-board room in Dassia and an August sea-view suite above Nissaki is very large, and no single published figure is honest about both. Tell us your dates, how many of you are travelling, whether you want calm shallow water or dramatic scenery, and whether all-inclusive matters. A consultant comes back within one working day with two or three properties in the right part of the island and the reasoning behind each. The quote is free, it commits you to nothing, and no payment is taken on this site — if you accept an offer, you pay the partner agency that issues the booking and the voucher, and that agency is named before you decide.