Achilleion, Kanoni and Corfu Old Town private tour (5 hours)

What fits in five hours?

Three stops with 36 minutes of driving in all, the least of our three Corfu tours, so more than four of the five hours are spent on foot. Routed on OpenStreetMap without traffic from the cruise terminal: 13 min and 10.3 km south to the Achilleion at Gastouri, 75 minutes there; 15 min and 12.8 km back to the Kanoni viewpoint, 30 minutes; 5 min and 3.4 km to the Old Town, 110 minutes on foot; 3 min and 2.4 km to the terminal. About three quarters of an hour is left over for the ticket queue, a coffee on the Liston or a longer look at the palace gardens. From a hotel the first leg follows the address. Paleokastritsa does not fit: it is on the 4-hour tour and, together with the palace, on the full day.

The Achilleion: ticket, hours and what to see

The general admission is 7 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, achillion-corfu.gr), paid at the gate or bought as an e-ticket on the palace’s own site; the reduced ticket, 5 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, achillion-corfu.gr), is sold only at the counters, and children up to five enter free. The palace opens every day: until 20:00 from April to October and until 16:00 from November to March, as its hours page lists them:

• 1 Apr to 31 Oct: 08:00 to 20:00
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: 08:00 to 16:00

Checked 14 Oct 2026, achillion-corfu.gr.

The palace’s own history page tells the rest: Empress Elisabeth of Austria had it built at Gastouri and completed in 1891, named it after Achilles, and was murdered in 1898; Kaiser Wilhelm II bought it in 1907 and set the Victorious Achilles in the gardens where her Dying Achilles had stood; after the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 it passed to the Greek state. The gardens with the two statues of Achilles and the Peristyle of the Muses, the Empress’s rooms and the Kaiser’s are what we plan 75 minutes for.

Kanoni and the Old Town

Kanoni is the tip of the peninsula south of the town: from the terrace you look down on the islet of Vlacherna, joined to the shore by a causeway, and on Mouse Island behind it, with the airport’s runway across the lagoon. Thirty minutes is the view and the photographs. The Old Town is the long stop, 110 minutes on foot from the Spianada, the esplanade in front of the Old Fortress, along the Liston and into the lanes behind it. The Old Fortress has its own ticket, 10 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr) full and 5 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr) reduced, with the last admission 20 minutes before closing and the hours on the Corfu page; an hour inside fits this stop, and the driver tells you where the vehicle waits for the road back.

Driver or licensed guide?

The Achilleion is run as a museum, and guiding inside a museum is the work of state-licensed guides under Law 5121/2024, so this is the Corfu tour on which the question matters. Our driver brings you to the gate, waits with the vehicle and tells you how long you have; the palace admits the driver of each group free, as it admits licensed guides with their professional ID, but the driver does not guide. A licensed guide for the palace is booked in advance on request and quoted with your day; without one, you walk the palace and the gardens at your own pace.

Steps, shade, toilets and lunch

The palace’s official pages list its ticket and hours and say nothing about steps, shade or toilets, and the Old Fortress’s page is the same; no official source describes the Kanoni terrace or the Old Town’s lanes. We print no guessed figure: ask your driver, who gives that practical orientation at each stop, and wear walking shoes, the office’s advice on every tour. Lunch is not planned into the five hours; the Old Town stop is long enough to eat in at your own expense, the driver waiting, if you would rather sit down than walk the lanes, and the full day puts lunch at Paleokastritsa instead.

What does it cost for our group?

The price is for the vehicle and the driver: 400 EUR for up to three guests in a sedan and 500 EUR for four to seven in a minivan, which is 125 EUR each for four and 71 EUR each for seven; from eight guests the rate is per person in a minibus, printed above from the office’s rate card. Paid at the gate and not in the price: the Achilleion’s admission, the Old Fortress’s ticket if you go in, anything you eat, and a licensed guide if you ask for one. Nothing is paid on the site; the office confirms by email and you pay the driver on the day.

Where do we meet the driver?

Cruise guests: at the passengers’ exit of the cruise terminal, with a sign with your name; the tour needs a call of five hours plus the 90-minute margin before all-aboard, which the card above prints and the booking form checks, and the cruise port page explains the two terminals and the road to town. Hotel guests: at the hotel or villa, anywhere on the island, and back there at the end. The Corfu page compares this tour with the other two.