CORFU ISLAND

Lovely Corfu, green and sun-drenched with its indented shores, a mythical, fascinating island, first appeared on the scene at the dawn of time when it gave refuge to Jason and the Argonauts on their return from their quest for the Golden Fleece. The description of "the island of the Phaeacians", in the Odyssey, Odysseus' last stop before arriving in his beloved Ithaca, is among the most beautiful verses in world literature.

The incomparable beauty of the island, which appears from time to time under other names, attracted a . host of would-be conquerors. It also inspired artists of every kind, who praised its charms in words and music or rendered them in paintings, sculptures or engravings, spreading its renown to a wide public over the past few centuries. Literary figures such as Goethe, Oscar Wilde, Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, the painters Alfred Sisley and Edward Lear, immortalized with their pen or palette Corfu's inimitable enchantment.

Even the great Napoleon was not unmoved by its beauty. It was here that the sensitive empress Elisabeth of Austria built the Achilleion, the palace she viewed as the solace of her soul, while according to Lawrence Durrell, Prospero's island in The Tempest is modelled on Shakespeare's notion of Corfu. Corfu was the birthplace of Greece's first governor, Ioannis Kapodistrias, of the composer Nikolaos Mantzaros (who set to music Solomos's "Hymn to Liberty," the country's national anthem), of the writers Polylas, Markoras, Mavilis, and Constantine Theotokis, as well as being a source of inspiration to Greece's national poet, Dionysios Solomos. Today it continues to attract and delight its countless visitors.

Corfu, one of the most beguiling cities in the Mediterranean, lies in the middle of the east coast of the island. It has grown along a narrow strip of land that juts out into the sea.

Its unique beauty is the product of the curious mixture of architectural styles left behind by the various occupying civilizations, blended into an especially harmonious whole.

The old city is the largest "living" mediaeval town preserved in Greece.

Its streets wind and wander with no discernible order or object, its picturesque cobblestone alleyways are interrupted by statues, graceful churches, Venetian tenements and fountains; the only way to see them is on foot.

The new section of town is inseparable from old, so that broad avenues with large piazzas can be found cheek by jowl with the cobbled lanes. Corfu's main square is the Spianada or Esplanade, rightly judged the most beautiful in Greece.

Hotels combining the latest amenities with respect for their surroundings lie at various points round town. Some of the city's houses -two storeys and higher- are in the English Georgian style, others display a strong French influence, while others are Italianate or in the island tradition.

Arcades and arches decorate them as do balconies with artfully designed wroughtiron .

Originally, Corfu was a fortress-state whose inhabitants lived within the walls of the Old (Sea) Fort built on the foundations of an earlier Byzantine castle that the Venetians reinforced and expanded by a moveable wooden bridge.

The new (land) Fort above the old harbour was erected between 1576 and 1588 to protect the town in the event of a Turkish invasion. The coast road with its graceful lampposts follows the mediaeval sea walls, the Mourayia. Its natural borders, the emerald sea on one side and lush greenery on the other, make it exceptionally lovely.