Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands. The island is part of the Corfu peripheral unit, and is administrated as a single municipality. The municipality includes the island Corfu and the smaller islands Ereikoussa, Mathraki and Othonoi. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality (pop. 33,886) is also named Corfu. Corfu is home to the Ionian University. The island is connected to the history of Greece from the beginning of Greek mythology. Its Greek name, Kerkyra or Korkyra, is related to two powerful water symbols: Poseidon, god of the sea, and Asopos, an important Greek mainland river. According to myth, Poseidon fell in love with the beautiful nymph Korkyra, daughter of Asopus and river nymph Metope, and abducted her. Poseidon brought Korkyra to the hitherto unnamed island and, in marital bliss, offered her name to the place: Korkyra, which gradually evolved to Kerkyra (Doric). Together, they had a child they called Phaiax, after whom the inhabitants of the island were named: Phaiakes. This term was transliterated via Latin to Phaeacians.
The island’s history is laden with battles and conquests. The legacy of these struggles is visible in the form of castles punctuating strategic locations across the island. Two of these castles enclose its capital, which is the only city in Greece to be surrounded in such a way. As a result, Corfu’s capital has been officially declared a Kastropolis (“castle city”) by the Greek government. Corfu was long controlled by Venice, which repulsed several Turkish sieges, before falling under British rule following the Napoleonic Wars. Corfu was eventually ceded by the British Empire along with the remaining islands of the United States of the Ionian Islands, and unification with modern Greece was concluded in 1864 under the Treaty of London. In 2007, the city’s old town was designated for the UNESCO World Heritage List, following a recommendation by ICOMOS. The town of Corfu stands on the broad part of a peninsula, whose termination in the Venetian citadel is cut off from it by an artificial fosse formed in a natural gully, with a seawater moat at the bottom, that now serves as a marina and is called the Contrafossa. The old town, having grown within fortifications, where every metre of ground was precious, is a labyrinth of narrow streets paved with cobblestones, sometimes tortuous but colourful and clean. These streets are known as kantoúnia, and the older amongst them sometimes follow the gentle irregularities of the ground; while many are too narrow for vehicular traffic. A promenade rises by the seashore towards the bay of Garitsa, together with an esplanade between the town and the citadel known as Spianada with the Liston (it) arcade to its west side, where restaurants and bistros abound. Corfu is home to a number of museums and architecturally noteworthy buildings.
German Kaiser Wilhelm II was also fond of taking holidays in Corfu. Having purchased the Achilleion in 1907 after Sissi’s death, he appointed Carl Ludwig Sprenger as the botanical architect of the Palace, and also built a bridge to be named by the locals after him: “Kaiser’s bridge”, to access the beach without traversing the road forming the island’s main artery to the south. The bridge, arching over the road, spanned the distance between the lower gardens of Achilleion and the nearby beach; its remains, a monument to imperial vanity as well as impracticality, are an important landmark on the highway. Corfiotes have a long history of hospitality to foreign residents and visitors, typified in the twentieth century by Gerald Durrell’s childhood reminiscence My Family and Other Animals. The North East coast has largely been developed by a few British holiday companies, with large expensive holiday villas. Package holiday resorts exist on the north and east coasts. At the other end of the island, the southern resort of Kavos also provides tourist facilities.
