Why hire a car in Corfu
Corfu is greener and hillier than most Greek islands, and that shape is exactly why a car matters here. The UNESCO-listed Old Town of Kerkyra is a maze of Venetian alleys, almost entirely pedestrian, so you won't want a car there — but the moment you leave it, the island opens up into places a bus route simply doesn't reach on a useful schedule: the turquoise cove and monastery at Paleokastritsa, the sandstone stacks of the "Canal d'Amour" at Sidari, the harbourside village of Kassiopi in the north-east, and the sunset viewpoint above Pelekas that locals still consider the best on the island.
Corfu's interior is mountainous, especially around Mount Pantokrator in the north, with narrower, winding roads that reward a bit of patience and a compact car rather than a large SUV. The east coast towns like Benitses and Dassia are busier and more built-up, while the north-west coast toward Angelokastro and Paleokastritsa is where the scenery gets dramatic. A hire car lets you string all of it together in a day — Achilleion Palace in the morning, lunch in the hills, sunset at Pelekas — rather than picking one destination and building a whole day around getting there and back.
