Twenty Four Days by Land and Sea in Europe - Port Call: Corfu, Greece

Our next stop after Kotor was our first stop in Greece -- Corfu.  Corfu is located in the Ionian islands and just about as far north as you can go in Greece.  When you look at the island on a map, about half the island is north of the Greece/Albania border.  

We docked at Corfu city and we headed off on foot to see the "New Fortress" and old town Corfu which is a World Heritage site.  The walk up the hill to the New Fortress was pretty easy -- finding the entrance though was a bit challenging.  We walked into 

Zucchini Flowers on sale at the Corfu Fresh Food Market adjacent to the New Fortress

the market and were impressed with the variety and quality of the seafood and vegetables.  We were even more impressed by the proprietor at the Popular by Christoforos, a small coffee bar/restaurant in the market place -- he noticed us looking around like we might be lost and asked if he could help.  He pointed us to the cleverly hidden -- and completely unmarked -- entrance to the New Fortress.  Really appreciate locals who take the time to help folks that are visiting their town.

Once we got into the fort, we were happy we'd made the climb - the view of the harbor and surrounding area was beautiful.

View from the New Fortress

Looking up at the New Fortress

As you can tell from the pictures, we were once again blessed with amazing weather -- a trend that had started on the first day of our road trip, and would continue throughout our cruise.

From the New Fortress, we headed down the hill for Old Town Corfu.

Lots of shopping 

Walk down the hill from the New Fortress 

Our Lunch Restaurant - Mike really liked his Seafood platter

Old Town Corfu was charming -- lots of shopping and restaurants, cobblestone streets, and colorful buildings.  We bought a couple of Greek style shirts (15 Euros each) and some soap made with Greek olive oil.  We were fascinated by the cars we watched traversing the narrow streets, made narrower still by cars parked on both sides of the street.  It seemed there was some kind of informal agreement that cars coming from the right hand side of the intersection would back up to allow cars entering on the left to pass through the intersection.  After watching this for 15 minutes, we were glad we weren't driving through Old Town.  We ate our first lunch in Greece at a pretty decent restaurant (pictured above) before walking back to our ship along the waterfront which took about 25 minutes or so.  All in all a very nice stop -- and I feel the three hours or so that we spent walking, shopping, and eating lunch was the perfect amount of time for our Corfu visit.