Walking on Corfu

Corfu, 8th edition, 2017, updated 1/07/24

Updates for walks and car tours (drives) on Corfu given below supplement those provided in the guidebook. It is vital that this Update is read in conjunction with the text of the book, but note that the Update applies only to the edition stated and not to any earlier editions. (If you have an older edition of this book you can “upgrade” to the latest edition at half price.)

Information has been forwarded to us by users of the book, and Sunflower Books offers the data in good faith but cannot be held responsible for any misleading or inaccurate content in the Update.

Unless indicated otherwise, what appears here has not been verified by the author or publisher, so please allow due caution when new or amended routes are suggested. Each piece of information is dated; bear in mind that some of the older observations may have since been overtaken by events or further changes.

If, during your holiday, you are using the current edition of the guide and are able to provide any additional updating to add to this page, we will be pleased to hear from you. Please send information, preferably by e-mail, to info@sunflowerbooks.co.uk.

Equipment: I don’t think walking poles are mentioned anywhere, yet they’d be really useful on a number of occasions, especially when descending steep stony tracks. (User, 5/19)

Walk 1: I suggest that the grading for this be reviewed. The sharp rocky pathway would make this route unsuitable for very young / old / those lacking confidence so not ‘easy’. I think you ought to make it clear that you retrace your steps for 350m/yds before turning right inland. (User, 9/19)

Walk 3: IMPORTANT: THIS WALK NO LONGER BEGINS FROM THE TOWN HALL. It begins 650m west of the roundabout, at the Folklore Museum/Roman Baths. Turn back from the baths for about 70m and then take a concreted lane uphill. Follow the blue way marks from there, all the way to Prifatika. It is very well waymarked; the new route adds just under 1km to the walk. The reason for the rerouting is made clear from the users comments below: bulldozing. (Sunflower, 5/24)

Walk 9: Difficult to follow the route in Spartilas as there are so many step paths and few CT signs.  Once above the village on a concrete track we missed the turn-off on the left.  This could be better described as being “30m beyond a set of steps on the left”. Trekking poles certainly would have been useful on this walk. (User, 9/19)

Walk 12: Short walk to Cape Drastis:  straightforward and worth it for the views. (User, 9/19)

Walk 17: Finally a path takes you down to Limni beach’: the book isn’t explicit here – you’ve been walking down a road, but you need to turn sharp right onto a path which is marked with a yellow arrow. You then walk through trees / an olive grove, descending and following handwritten signs to Limni beach. There’s a serious error here, insofar as the photo on page 90 that purportedly shows Limni beach is in fact the beach at Porto Timoni (which is also featured on the centrefold of pages 10-11). It was rather disconcerting to arrive at Limni and not recognise it from the guidebook – I initially thought there must be another similar beach nearby (there isn’t). There’s also a typo/error in the Grade: ‘with ascents/descents of 150m/000ft’ – I assume that should be approx. 500ft (User, 5/19)

Walk 18: Signage from the start to Elly Beach Hotel was good, but the boundary of the hotel is now an derelict wooden shed with dodgy planks and protruding nails. At the rear of the hotel you mention a set of steps, but omit to say that you should turn right at the cement road above them. There are no CT signs. On our return we found it difficult to retrace our route through Liapades and it is worth mentioning that after the Elly Beach Hotel the route (only faintly marked) heads immediately uphill to the right. (User, 9/19)

Walk 19: At the start, you have to get down a 2m/6ft deep slope… ‘it’s steep (…) you may find an old ladder here – or a rope…’. There is now both a sturdy new ladder and a rope – no need for all fours.

Once you reach the grounds of the Elly Beach Hotel and have passed the pool, look for a short flight of steps in a red-brown coloured wall (to your left). That immediately takes you onto a road, then you shortly afterwards turn left at the junction to head uphill to Villa Birlis, so the bit about The Cricketer (NOT Cricketer’s) Taverna is irrelevant. You simply pass the entrance to its grounds. VILLA BIRLIS is perhaps slightly further than the book implies, but you can’t miss it (and you will have just passed ‘Village Market’ on your left). You should ignore a yellow arrow to your right as you climb the road to Villa Birlis. (User, 5/19)

Walk 20: Found Walk 20 hard to follow and had to backtrack because of a particularly vicious dog. Several other dogs caused problems so don’t think this walk is feasible. (User, 9/20)

Unfortunately this user does not specify where the walk was ‘hard to follow’ or where the dog(s) were. A user who obviously did not read this update has explained a bit more. It seems the problem comes after waypoint 3, where the path skirting the Camomilia villa is ‘indistinct and probably overgrown’. She says this was full of ‘sticking plants’ and impossible to get through. She then tried to walk the track north of the villa (shown on the map), and it was at the beginning of that track that the dog or dogs attacked her. She was actually bitten. So avoid the Villa altogether. From waypoint 3 refer to the map on page 95: you will see it is a very short way to the main road, where there is a ‘grasshopper sign’! Turn right on the road for 500m/yds, then, some 30m/yds past a bus shelter on the left, turn right up a concrete lane — the only steepish climb on the walk (just over 50m/165ft). This lane emerges at Ag Noufures, where you  pick up the walk again at waypoint 4. The detour adds about 1km to the walk. (Sunflower, 7/24)

Walk 23: DIELLASSUPERMARKET (not DIELLA’S): strictly speaking, it’s green and white rather than exclusively green.

‘Skirting a fenced-off field’: you pass a house which has a number of small boats next to the fence, and you bear right after this fence (i.e. don’t go straight ahead because the path peters out). The pond isn’t immediately visible either – you only see it on your left from the path that then skirts the valley.

‘…then turn 90^○left on a gravel track (there may be a sign, ‘VATOS-ROPA’ on the gateway of a small market garden on the right’): the sign says ROPA-VATOS, and while the gateway is still there, the market garden is now overgrown.

‘Some 20 minutes along you reach another wide DRAINAGE DITCH’: perhaps I missed the first drainage ditch, but in any case it’s more helpful here to say that you reach a narrow tarmac road (which is very cracked). Climbing towards the radio masts after Vatos village, you need to take extra care that you aren’t being lured down the wrong paths which are nevertheless marked with enticing yellow arrows (and written signs too). Keep going to the radio masts – they are obvious; then follow directions from the book (the latter part of Walk 22). (User, 5/19)

Walk 24: Buses to Ano Garouna are very infrequent, so I started my walk in Benitses instead, heading for Makrata by taking a steep road signposted STAVROS at the far end of Benitses village. This is a very quiet road through a pleasant landscape, BUT it involves climbing steadily for about an hour. There’s a junction at some point on this road, and you should fork left (signposted Stavros). You then reach Makrata and start Walk (b) on page 110.

‘After a SHRINE and then a CHAPEL onthe right, turn left on a two wheeled track in front of a low brick wall’: don’t be tempted to take the track immediately opposite the chapel. You can’t miss the left turn because it’s signposted CT with yellow arrows, and some kind soul/municipality has also erected a sign for walkers (Red Route 1). This path is narrow and stony and goes up and down, and it also goes on for much longer than the book implies, so you won’t be reaching that ‘surfaced track’any time soon. It’s an easy path to follow because there are plenty of yellow markers and red & white markers. Indeed, you can follow these markers for quite a while, following signs to the monastery. The climb up to the monastery is very steep and tiring (strenuous rather than moderate, especially if you started at sea level in Benitses).

Once you reach the monastery, you follow directions on page 108.

‘Then return to the junction below the moni and keep straight on..’: the way to reach the correct path is actually from the courtyard of the monastery itself, leaving by a very obvious gate and then walking through the orchard that’s mentioned slightly earlier on this page. You’re following yellow Corfu Trail markers and Route 5 to Agioi Deka:

Agioi Deka, Agii Deka or Ag Deka? The book is confusing here: as I understand it, there’s a mountain called Agii/Agioi Deka (the variation in spelling is obviously the result of transcribing the Greek alphabet) and a village of the same name. ‘Ag Deka’ (as used in the book) is simply an abbreviation, but that isn’t immediately clear. If you’re going to use an abbreviation, make that obvious by writing Ag. Deka.

‘Soon reaching a stone and earth track..’: it took about 15-20 minutes!

‘Two minutes down the track, turn sharp right on a narrower track’: this was a bit confusing because there was a sign here (in Greek, indicating the monastery, seen in the photo below) which seemed to point down the track – counter-intuitive because the monastery you’d recently left was clearly higher up. However, this was because someone had rotated the pole of the sign (I kindly remedied that).

‘Turn right immediately above the car park, along a concrete path leading in less than 100m/yds into the village of Ag Deka’: it’s a crazy paving path.

‘Keep ahead along the narrow alleys, and in three minutes you will emerge on the road (…) turn right on the road, leaving the Corfu trail…’: I emerged onto a road (tarmac to the left, more crazy paving to the right, yellow CT sign pointing left) and duly turned right as instructed. But then I eventually reached another (bigger) tarmac road which was essentially a junction where I had the choice of going left (downhill) or right (slightly uphill). I hadn’t been expecting this road/junction, since the book implies you’re just going straight on. But (having subsequently looked at the route on GPS) I believe you need to turn/fork RIGHT here and go uphill for a while. I preferred to go downhill, and it was fine because on the outskirts of the village there was a road off to the right signposted Benitses. It wasn’t at all busy (might be more so in high summer) and – lo and behold – I eventually reached the shrines described on page 109, so this was the road mentioned in ‘a railed walkway takes you to a road’. There are signs to the ‘Water springs’ by these shrines, so I took the path for about 7-8 minutes, slightly uphill, to see what I had missed. Not sure if it was worth it – it’s very overgrown, and I think the suggestion that it’s a garden is over-generous.

The remaining directions to Benitses were fine. (User, 5/19) [Sunflower begs to disagree about the waterworks garden – we think it’s simply beautiful…]

Walk 28a: The footbridge at waypoint 1 is not in place so there was no way across the canal on 31st March 2022. It is possible that we are too early in the season but I am not aware of any seasonal changes. (User, 3/22) + A new footbridge is in place and crossable! (User, 5/22)

Walk 29: I had to wade in water 18 inches deep to cross the beach and the cliffs prevented an alternative route. (User, 9/20) [First time in 20-30 years we’ve seen this comment about part of the Corfu Trail!]

Walk 29a: After the Moni Panagia ruin you recommend a short walk to a viewpoint. I would not recommend this. The path peters now out in scrub and the area is a popular toilet stop. (User, 9/19)

Walk 30: The section across the salt pan is not passable because of a section of sea and mud. (User, 9/20) [We ought to have mentioned that there is sometimes a bit of water on the section crossing the salt pans, but we have never found it ‘impassable’.]

A good leg stretch, but the description between waypoints 4 and 5 on your sketch map is confusing. (User, 9/19)