Spring is coming and since my first trip to Greece was a fantastic experience, I decided to take a short weekend trip to Corfu this time.
Corfu is one of the Ionian Islands and up in the north of Greece. It inhabits 100,000 people and is a well-known travel destination in summer.
On clear days, you can see the coast of Albania which is about 40 minutes away with a ferry.
The island is very green and has lots of nature to enjoy. From Cologne, it took me two and a half hours to get to Korfu Airport and it is very accessible. Quite recently Frasport has taken over the management of that airport and lots of construction was in progress thus there was no real arrival facilities except the ATM and some rental car counters.
So i hopped on to the bus no. 15 and went for the city center (the central square).
I started off the first day with visiting the old town of Corfu, which the locals call Kerkyra. To my standards, it is very small and you can reach everything easily by foot. I rented off an AirBnB very near to the Old Fortress. From the airport, it only took me 10 minutes to get there. The weather was rather cloudy but it did hardly rain and it’s already warm enough to stay out the whole day.
After arrival, I decided to take a visit of the Asian Art Museum, a surprisingly nice place to go. It was founded by the late Embassador to Austria who collected thousands of artifacts from China, India, Japan and Central Asia. Rather unexpected, the collection displays items from different centuries that arrived on Corfu via traders but also from the donations. Explanations are sufficient and I learned something about Hinduism I did not notive before. I liked the Chinese and Japanese collections and it seems both had the nicest exponates.
The harbor area is nice, nothing very special to see but you pass by a market.
I walked along the shore to reach the New Venetian Fortress, unfortunately the gates were shut so I could not see the inside. There is another fortress one could visit, the old fortress and I went there instead.
Inside, you can see the Church of Saint George and up the hill you will experience a fantastic view over Kerkyra.
There are four fortresses on Corfu: two in Kerkyra (Old and New Fortress), Gardaki as well as Cassiopi.
I wanted to get to the new castle, but it was unfortunately closed - and it didn’t reopen until my departure. The entrance to the New Fortress is to the left passing by an alley. There is a small square where some restaurants are located.
Going back, I passed Liston and the Spianada.
To be honest, I did not actually made up many thoughts about food since my assumption was: everything would be delicious and I used Google Maps to find locations near my apartment. My first dinner was some Greek Salad with the Corfitian Sofrito, a typical meal with veal and cooked wine sauce:
Not too bad :)
Then I went out and it started to rain, since I woke up early and didn’t want to get sick I just got back to my apartment and had an early rest.