Old Fortress of Corfu

The Old Fortress (Paleo Frourio) of Corfu stands on a twin-peaked rocky promontory jutting into the Ionian Sea at the eastern end of Corfu Town in the Ionian Islands of Greece, separated from the old town by an artificial channel — the Contrafossa — cut by the Venetians in the 16th century. The fortress represents the combined work of several civilizations over more than a millennium: Byzantine defenses formed the original core, to which the Venetians added their most significant extensions between the 15th and 17th centuries, and the British undertook modifications during their administration of the Ionian Islands in the 19th century.

Entry to the fortress is via a bridge over the Contrafossa and through the main Venetian gate. The interior contains a complex of structures spread across the two peaks and the saddle between them: the lower peak houses the Church of St. George — a neoclassical structure built by the British in 1840 in the style of a Doric temple — which now serves as a small museum of Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons and religious objects. The upper peak, accessible by a rough path of around 15 to 20 minutes from the gate, is crowned by a Venetian lighthouse tower and offers the finest views available from any point in Corfu: the old town immediately to the west, the Albanian coast to the northeast, the Pantocrator massif to the north, and the open Ionian to the south and east.

The fortress walls and ramparts can be walked along stretches of the perimeter, providing changing perspectives on the sea and the town. The scale of the construction is most apparent when viewed from the water approaching by ferry — the twin peaks with their Venetian masonry rise dramatically above the harbor entrance.

Summer evenings at the fortress include occasional sound-and-light performances and classical music concerts held in the Church of St. George or on the ramparts, creating one of the most atmospheric concert settings in Greece.