Greece · Ionian Islands
Where to Stay in Corfu, Ionian Islands
Corfu, or Kerkyra, is the capital of the Ionian Islands, a Greek island city grown from the ancient town of Corcyra.
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Where to stay in Corfu
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
The named sites fall into two groups. One is the town itself, where Saint Spyridon Church, the Cathedral of Saint James and Saint Christopher and the Municipal Gallery of Corfu stand close enough that a visitor can cover them between meals without ever touching a road out. The other is Mon Repos.
The Temple of Hera and the Archaeological museum of Palaiopolis belong to that ground, and reaching them is a separate errand from a room in the centre. Kerkyra reads as one town on a map and as two errands underfoot. Museums settle the second decision.
The Banknote Museum, the Serbian Museum of Corfu, the Archaeological museum of Corfu and the Museum of Asian art of Corfu all sit inside the same island capital, so anyone here for collections rather than for the sea should book by their footprint. Devotion pulls elsewhere. Monastery of Vlacherna and Platytera Monastery draw visitors out of the museum streets, and a room chosen only for museum distance will sit wrong for them.
Corfu carries the regional unit's business as well, which puts official traffic and holiday traffic in one small capital and makes an early booking worth more than a late choice.
About Corfu
Museums do a lot of the work here.
What is Corfu known for?
The Museum of Asian art of Corfu, the Byzantine Museum of Antivouniotissa, the Banknote Museum and the Serbian Museum of Corfu all sit inside one island town, which is an unusual spread of collections for a place of this size. Saint Spyridon Church stands among them. Kerkyra also runs the paperwork of two administrations, as capital of the Corfu regional unit and of the Ionian Islands region.
What are the main landmarks in Corfu?
Churches take the largest share. Saint Spyridon Church, the Cathedral of Saint James and Saint Christopher, the Church of Saints Jason and Sosipater and the Church of Pantokrator in Campiello all stand inside a single island capital. Antiquity is on the list too.
The Temple of Artemis and the Temple of Hera at Mon Repos both belong to Corcyra, the ancient city that stood here. Two monasteries close the set: Platytera Monastery and the Monastery of Vlacherna.
What is the history of Corfu?
Corcyra came first. The ancient city gave this site its earliest name, and the Temple of Artemis along with the Temple of Hera at Mon Repos are what that period left on the ground. Greek history kept coming back.
Kerkyra has counted in it since antiquity, and the Archaeological museum of Corfu and the Archaeological museum of Palaiopolis between them hold the material dug from those centuries. Little of it survives above street level. Later layers arrived with their own keepers.
The Byzantine Museum of Antivouniotissa, the Serbian Museum of Corfu, the Museum of Asian art of Corfu and the Banknote Museum each hold a separate strand of the town's past, and the Maitland Monument stands for another. Two more came later still, the Municipal Gallery of Corfu and the Corfu Living History Museum. Monasteries carried the religious record.
Platytera Monastery, the Monastery of Vlacherna and Iera Moni Agiou Theodorou belong to that older institutional map, as does Saint Spyridon Church. Administration reorganised last. The 2019 local government reform ended Corfu as a municipality in its own right and folded it into Central Corfu and Diapontian Islands, though the town kept the capital's role for that municipality, for the Corfu regional unit and for the Ionian Islands region.
Where is Corfu?
An island holds all of it. Corfu stands on the island of the same name, off the Greek mainland rather than on it, and the former municipality around the town runs to about 42 square kilometres. Water does the boundary work.
Mon Repos and Palaiopolis sit on one edge of the built ground, and the rest of the island carries on past the capital.
What is the climate of Corfu?
Sea air runs the year here. Corfu takes its weather off the Ionian Sea, which keeps the town's extremes shorter than the Greek interior manages and hands the island its wet months in winter rather than in summer. Green lasts longer than on drier islands.
The Mon Repos ground and the country past Palaiopolis show it first, well before the museum streets of Kerkyra register any change at all.
How do you get to Corfu?
Nothing arrives by road from Greece. Corfu lies on an island, so every approach crosses water or comes in by air, and Kerkyra is where the island's own routes converge because the capital carries the regional unit's traffic as well as its own. The town itself is small work.
Saint Spyridon Church, the Municipal Gallery of Corfu and the Banknote Museum sit close together in the capital, though Mon Repos and Palaiopolis need transport.
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Updated August 2026