Sidequest — 3 days in Corfu

3 days, 2 nights in the Old Town

After several weeks of looking out at the island of Corfu about 8 miles from our balcony in Sarandë, Albania, we finally went to visit.

Our ‘seaview’ apartment in Saranda has a pretty limited view of the sea — Photo by author, all rights reserved

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The ferry ride

Since it’s off season there are limited ferries from Sarande to Corfu Town. Finikas and Ionian Seaways, for example, have one per day except at the weekend. In order to maximize our time on the ground, we caught the 10:00 departure on Wednesday with return on the 16:00 Friday. Due to a time zone difference, the 30 minute ferry crossing to Corfu leaves at 10:00 and arrives at 11:30. On the other hand, the 16:00 departure from Corfu arrives in Sarande at 15:30 (Well, usually; more on that later)

There are multiple ferry lines running between Saranda and Corfu but their schedules vary throughout the year. We used Finikas and paid 20€ (US$23.35 this week) per person, each way. Our friend who happened to be there when we arrived used Ionian and said she paid 10€.

Although our emailed tickets said they needed to be printed, that was NOT the case for us. We just downloaded the pdf and showed that on our phones. Is that also true for the other ferry lines? No idea. Caveat emptor, baby.

There are ticket offices on Rruga Mitat Hoxha directly above the ferry terminal or you can buy tickets online.

The directions say to arrive ‘at least one hour’ prior to scheduled departure. I would say not much more than one hour because you can’t access the security area for passport control until one hour before. During busy times the lines may be slow, though, so don’t think you’re gonna pop in 15 minutes before sailing and breeze on.

We chose the ‘fast ferry’ rather than the car ferry — Photo by author, all rights reserved

You’ll go through passport control on both ends but we didn’t pass through any metal detectors or see any other security measures. They do HAVE facility for bag scan but we didn’t see anyone get pulled for that.

There is a Duty free shop in the Corfu departure area. It’s not huge but if you forgot to get a gift package of Kumquat cookies or a giant Toblerone before you left town they’ve got you covered. Cigarettes are pretty cheap — I saw carton prices ranging from 15 to 42€ (US$17.50 to $49) but there is a limited selection.

Approaching passport control you may find that ‘Orderly queue’ is not really a thing until you get within about 5 feet of the booths. It’s just a swirling mass of people that eventually sorts into 2 or 3 lines at the last possible opportunity.

The port at Corfu is pretty big. There isn’t much in the way of services at the international terminal. FWIW, the domestic terminal has a restaurant

There is a city bus stop right at the terminal as well as a taxi rank. Not sure what the buses cost as we just walked into town. I saw an all day pass advertised for 5€ so I’d have to guess that single trip fares are probably 1€. There are fixed fares for taxi rides to common destinations and there is a sign posted right there at the taxi rank

Wednesday afternoon

We arrived to Corfu International terminal about 11:40 and walked into town. From the arrival terminal to our hotel was a little over a mile and it took us pretty close to an hour because we had to stop for a few photos and visit an ATM. I only had 10€ in cash and that’s not enough for me to be comfortable walking around an unfamiliar city so I grabbed another 80€ and it turned out to be a good thing I did. we bumped into a couple of cash only situations and I ended up spending almost 60€ cash during our visit

We spent a couple of hours wandering around the old town and stopped for ‘lunch’ at Taverna Pergola. We just did appetizers; Spicy cheese dip, bread and roast potatoes 21.40€ (US$24.95) and it was plenty filling

We checked into our hotel and had a little nap, because, why not?

We went to Silo for dinner because I saw the ‘50/50 burger’ on the menu and a half beef/half mutton burger patty sounded fairly awesome to me. Sandra had the Giozlene. Sandra had brandy and I had a beer, we finished with espresso and the total check was 43.90€ (US$51.18)

This was an excellent burger but definitely a knife and fork job — Photo by author, all rights reserved

We stopped at a kiosk on the Old Port Square and picked up a couple bottles of water and candy bars for dessert.

Location, location, location

We stayed at Hotel Konstantinoupolis which is right at the Old Port Square. It dates to 1862 and it’s shown on Google as a 2 star hotel. It was fine. For a 2 night stay like this we are looking for a clean, secure place with not uncomfortable beds. They provide that. We had a seaview room with a tiny little balcony that offered a view of the old port and the ‘New Fortress’. We had booked a room with a double bed but what we got was 3 twins. We we didn’t bother to go back downstairs to argue the point because, who cares? The bed was long enough for me (I’m 188cm; 6'2" US) and sleeping in separate beds for a couple of nights isn’t any great hardship.

Hotel Konstantinoupolis at Old Port Square — Photo by author, all rights reserved

It’s an old building with old systems. The elevator is limited to 2 people and if you have more than one small bag each, it’s going to be one person. A couple that came in after us had 3 suitcases and their solution was for him to take the elevator with the bags and she walked up the stairs.

The shower was fine; good water pressure and enough hot water but it’s old plumbing so no paper into the toilet, there is a little bin for your toilet paper.

We didn’t need AC this time of year but the heat worked fine. When we got back to the room after a full day of exploring and found that housekeeping had left all the windows open, the heater was a critical item. It was 8 pm and 8 degrees (46 degrees American) and we really like to be around 20 (68f) to sleep.

View of the ‘new’ fortress from Old Port Square — Photo by author, all rights reserved

Thursday

The hotel does not provide breakfast and the two restaurants on the ground floor — Agora and Gatto Nero — are closed for the winter. Fortunately, we discovered Xenia Coffee Bar directly behind the hotel and had some pretty tasty Ham and cheese ‘not croissants’ with cappuccinos. I have no receipt and the power was out so I had to pay cash; I THINK it was 13€

We had only a vague ideas of how to proceed for the day; Sandra was interested in the garden associated with the Palace and I had the Old Fortress and the Archeological Museum on my list.

We meandered across town and had a look at the old fortress then passed through the Durrell garden and the People’s Garden and walked around the outside of the Palace.

We stopped for coffee at The Address 92 and just hung out for a while. We got to see a marching band form up and start out. 2 Cappuccinos 9.45€ (US$11.06)

Sandra wasn’t excited about the Old Fortress so we split up from there. I spent the next 3 hours there and she just went on a walkabout that eventually led her through the Corfu market and racked up some 13,000 steps.

I only managed to get to 9,000 steps by the time I finished at the Old Fortress, admission to which is 10€ (US$11.70), but I had a LOT more elevation changes. The lighthouse is quite a good ways up the hill. Wikipedia says 78M (256 feet) but it sure looks higher than that <?> Feels higher than that by the time you complete the climb, too

The Old Fortress is an imposing pile of rocks — Photo by author, all rights reserved

Sandra spent that time wandering on her own and covered a pretty good piece of the city

We met up again at Xenia for tasty, tasty ‘donut like things’ and espresso. 10.40€ (US$12.17)

We stopped at Xenia for an afternoon pick-me-up. It’s not really a donut but it also isn’t not a donut — Photo by author, all rights reserved

We met up with another traveler we knew from Sarande to have a drink at a wine bar — 18.50 (US$21.65) for one glass of red and one cocktail — then go out to dinner.

We couldn’t decide where to have dinner but our friend struck up a conversation with the group at the table next to us, one of whom happened to be a rep for a wine distributor on the island. The first place he suggested wasn’t open but his fallback was Aegli which advertises itself as the Oldest Restaurant in Corfu. I don’t know about that but the food and service were absolutely on-point. We started off with a phyllo-wrapped, baked feta drizzled with a honey and ouzo syrup. Sandra had the beef stew sofritos and I got the beef stew pastisadas. I also had a glass of wine and our total was 69.10€ (US$80.87) Our friend ordered the braised mushrooms starter which was really nice and the filet which was also very nice.

Friday

Our final morning we walked along the seaside rather than going though town. The primary sightseeing goal for the day was to visit the Archeological museum but there were two other museums along the way — Dionysus and Byzantine — that were potentially interesting to me.

Breakfast was the first project. Dionysus museum was closed (we presume for the holy day since a lot of places were closed for that reason) and the Byzantine wasn’t open until 09:30; we walked past at about 09:15. Just up around the corner and down towards the water we saw a building that looked like it was probably a restaurant and also looked like there was activity so we took a chance. We found Faliraki, which wasn’t going to open until 10:00 so we hung out and watched people fish for a while. I had the Omelette special, Sandra ordered the ‘Greek breakfast’ and we ended up spending 30.50€ (US$35.94) including two cappuccinos.

My special omelet was all of that. Faliraki was a good choice — Photo by author, all rights reserved

After breakfast we made our way up to the Archeological Museum. This was a bit of a let down, honestly. I had very high expectations because of the location and the size of the building so I had set aside 2 hours to make sure I didn’t feel rushed. We got change back from an hour and we had set a pretty casual pace. Was it cool? Sure. Was it worth 20€ (US$23.53)? Maybe?

The Archeological Museum was cool but I expected more from it — Photo by author, all rights reserved

We set out across town thinking we’d have a coffee somewhere and then maybe visit the Byzantine museum but once we settled down at Palette with coffees we lost our momentum. The complimentary pound cake was very nice, too. We stepped up for double macchiatos which came to 6.60€ for 2.

Since it was close to one o’clock when we got to Palette, that was effectively the end of our day. We left a little after 2 to walk back to the ferry terminal.

Departure

The signs at the international terminal were not, in our opinion, super helpful. There is a door labeled ‘Albania Departures’ but it was locked and there was a much smaller sign on the side of the building that said ‘Saranda passengers — cars’ with an arrow pointing around the corner.

You’ll want to go into the front of the building, the side facing the main road, and turn to the right. Once you’ve gotten inside the building it’s pretty well marked. But it isn’t obvious that you’re supposed to go into the building right there.

The International Terminal at Corfu ferry port is pretty cool — Photo by author, all rights reserved

Our ferry left Corfu just about on schedule for 16:00 and we anticipated a 30 minute crossing, arriving to Saranda around 15:30. We hadn’t got very far out of Corfu when the boat suddenly slowed abruptly. Looking out the window we saw masses of debris in the water so I presume they slowed due to that. Eventually the pace picked up a little bit but the crossing took ages. I used the extra time to have a nice nap but it was 17:45 when we finally docked

Home, sweet home

Our favorite local restaurant is just a very short walk from the Sarandë ferry terminal so we visited ‘My Family’ for dinner. Chicken soup for Sandra because she loves their chicken soup. Fasule me Mish (beans with meat) for me and brusketta to share. With two bottles of water and turkish coffee to finish, we spent 2380 lek (US$28.99)

First impressions, final thoughts

We enjoyed out little break to Corfu Town and will probably go back at some point since we didn’t make it to the New Fortress or any of the other museums we had interest in.

Old Town is, unsurprisingly, pretty touristy. We had been warned by others that food prices were high compared to Albania (and even mainland Greece, according to one person) but it was still a shock to spend $15 on two pastries and two coffees.

Our dinner at Aegir was, at US$80, the single most expensive meal we’ve had outside the US (we aren’t ‘fine dining’ people) but all of the meals we had there were way more than what we are used to spending in Albania

Sandra at the port on our way out of Corfu — Photo by author, all rights reserved

My wife and I are full-time world travelers. ‘Senior Nomads’ and American Expats who opted to spend our retirement — and our children’ s inheritance — on the road. Sometimes I just write what I need to get out of my head, so politics and nonsense come up from time to time. Feel free to disagree with my opinions. Heck, even I do that sometimes.

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Photo(s) by author, all rights reserved