Old Town of Corfu

The Old Town of Corfu occupies a peninsula on the island's northeastern coast, guarding the strategic entrance to the Adriatic Sea from foundations that reach back to the 8th century BC. Its character was forged above all by nearly five centuries of Venetian rule, evident in tall, narrow ochre and terracotta houses, arcaded streets, and the broad esplanade known as the Liston. Two great fortresses — the Old Fortress, of Byzantine origin and expanded by Venice, and the New Fortress completed in the late 16th century — were designed by renowned Venetian engineers to defend the Republic's maritime trade against the Ottomans, and were repaired again under later French and British rule. Behind them stretches a warren of narrow lanes, the kantounia, lined with churches, squares and neoclassical buildings. Remarkably intact and authentic as a fortified Mediterranean port, the Old Town of Corfu was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007.