My DIY Corfu Trip + Corfu Research

[faith4keep]

I reviewed each port on my trip in my Port Reviews but wanted to provide more details here. This is from my trip on NCL Jade 9/22-29/12. I'm also including PDFs of my research, which I stored on my iPad for the trip. We had a group of 6 people, ages 26-31, so we tend to be a bit more adventurous.

 

Ship scheduled to be in Corfu 8am-3:30pm. We scored tix for Tender #7 which got us off the ship around 9:20am and onto the island around 9:40am, last tender was at 2:30pm. Our goal was to follow the advice of a review on Trip Advisor I found (see attached, “Best Day on Corfu for our Family of 5”… thanks Frank B!).

 

Once we arrived via tender, there was a car rental company right on the port, Royal Car Rental. She originally quoted 120Euros for a 7 passenger vehicle but we negotiated down to 110Euros (we need some better negotiation skills, but 110E was comparable to what I had found online). Make sure you have someone in your group who can drive stick/automatic!

 

Out of the port, we turned right and followed signs to Paleokastrista. The car rental agency provided us a map and before getting all the way to Paleokastrista we took a right off to some amazing viewing points. Gilded Fox was one, but we went even further up some very curvy, scary roads to the very top of the area we were at and had some incredible views.

 

We drove back down and took a right onto the main road to Paleokastrista. We passed by the main beaches and took the road up to the monastery. We visited the beautiful monastery here. There was a restaurant next door to the monastery, and although we wanted a great Greek lunch (with again, fantastic views over the cliff) it was still 10:40am and the restaurant wasn't serving food yet.

 

We drove from the church back down to the beaches and parked in the public parking area (3 euros). We found a sign for boat rentals, down a road opposite of the main beach. I believe the boat rental was 50 euros for several hours although we didn't have much time. The operators gave us a map and we drove our own boat around the Ionian Sea (!). It was absolutely gorgeous. We found some coves and caves to swim in, and although it was very cold and very salty water it was an AMAZING experience.

 

We returned the boat, and got all changed before heading back to the port. There were changing stalls around on the beach but public restrooms were more difficult to find. We left the beach area around 1:30pm.

 

It was about a 40 minute drive back to the port. We had a little difficulty finding our car rental agency again but after a few minutes, found her, and dropped the car off. We processed through the port building and made it onto one of the "last tenders" around 2:20pm.

 

Overall I feel that we got to see a lot of Corfu this way, and got some stellar photos. We missed out on seeing Corfu Town but I'm not too sad about that. Warning that there are little bees buzzing around EVERYWHERE here, which totally freaked me out, so mentally prepare for this.

 

I've attached to this post some of the research I did for Corfu, and I also found a great port guide, search the web for "Corfu Port Guide".

Corfu - Directions to Paleokastristsa.pdf

Corfu - Paleokastritsa 6 Beaches.pdf

Corfu - TripAdvisor.pdf

[TMLAalum]

Thanks, will be there next November.

[faith4keep]

Thanks, will be there next November.

 

You're welcome! I was surprised at how hot it was there (even though the cruise daily said 72F) so pack accordingly!