Art And Culture in Corfu

Corfu Town is the one Greek city that grew up inside the western tradition without a break. There was no Ottoman period here, but there was a Venetian administration, then a French one, then a British one, and each left an institution rather than just a building. The Ionian Academy, opened in 1824, was the first university of modern Greece; the town's philharmonic, founded in 1840, still puts orchestras out on the processions. Even the cricket ground exists because British officers played on the parade ground and the townspeople took it up.

The church line here is its own as well. The church of Saint Spyridon holds the relics of the island's patron: they are carried out four times a year, the streets close, and the philharmonic marches at the head of the procession. Nearby, in the former British residence — the Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George — is the Museum of Asian Art: a collection of Chinese and Japanese works assembled by a Greek diplomat, unexpected in these rooms, and yet that is exactly how it came to be.

Outside town the line continues with two palaces and one mountain. The Achilleion, twelve kilometres away, was built by Empress Elisabeth in her Homeric obsession; after her death the Kaiser lived there. Tours usually take it together with the villages of Sinarades and Pelekas, where ordinary life survives. A separate route crosses to the mainland for Meteora, and evenings in town often end with a tasting of local wine, held at your own hotel or villa.