Corfu highlights private tour (4 hours)

What fits in four hours?

Three stops and 73 minutes of driving in all without traffic, routed on OpenStreetMap from the cruise terminal: 30 min and 22.9 km across the island to Paleokastritsa, where we plan 50 minutes; 35 min and 27.7 km back along the west coast and down to the Kanoni viewpoint, 25 minutes for the view of Mouse Island; 5 min and 3.4 km to the Old Town, an hour on foot; then 3 min and 2.4 km to the terminal. That leaves about half an hour for a photo stop on the road or a longer coffee. From a hotel the first leg follows the address, and the day ends back at the hotel. What does not fit: the Achilleion, which is the 5-hour tour, and a swim with lunch, which is the full day.

Paleokastritsa, Kanoni and the Old Town

Paleokastritsa is a village of small bays on the west coast with a monastery on the headland above them; fifty minutes is the view from the headland and a walk down to the water, not a swim with towels and a shower. Kanoni is the tip of the peninsula south of the town: the terrace looks down on the islet of Vlacherna, joined to the shore by a causeway, and on Mouse Island beyond it, with the airport’s runway across the lagoon. The Old Town is walked, not driven: the driver drops you at the edge of the Spianada, the esplanade in front of the Old Fortress, and the Liston along its side and the lanes behind it are an hour on foot. The Old Fortress has its own ticket, 10 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr) full, with the hours and closed days on the Corfu page; an hour in town is tight for it, and the 5-hour tour’s longer stop fits it better.

Driver or licensed guide?

A driver. None of the three stops as planned is a museum: the driver drops you as close as the road allows, tells you where to come back to and how long you have, and waits with the vehicle until you return. Guiding inside a monument or a museum, the Old Fortress included, is the work of state-licensed guides under Law 5121/2024; the driver does not do it, and a guide is added on request and quoted with your day. The driver-or-guide guide has the law behind it.

Steps, shade, toilets and lunch

We print what a source states and nothing more. The Old Fortress’s official page gives its ticket, its hours and its closed days and nothing about steps, shade or toilets; no official page we can cite describes the path down at Paleokastritsa, the lanes of the Old Town or the terrace at Kanoni. So: for the steps at each stop, the shade at midday and the nearest toilets, ask your driver on the day; walking shoes are the office’s advice for every tour, and the vehicle carries bottled water. Lunch is not planned into four hours: if you would rather eat than walk, the Old Town hour becomes lunch at your own expense, the driver waits, and the minutes come out of the four.

What does it cost for our group?

300 EUR for up to three guests in a sedan and 400 EUR for four to seven in a minivan: 100 EUR each for four, 57 EUR each for seven; from eight guests the rate is per person in a minibus, as the table above prints it from the office’s rate card. Nothing is paid on the site: you send the request, the office confirms by email and you pay the driver on the day. Extra and paid on the spot: the Old Fortress ticket if you go in, anything you eat or drink, and a licensed guide if you ask for one.

Where do we meet the driver?

At the passengers’ exit of the cruise terminal, where the driver holds a sign with your name, or at your hotel or villa anywhere on the island. Ships berth alongside at Corfu and the port has two passenger terminals, so give us the ship’s name and its arrival and all-aboard times: the day ends 90 minutes before all-aboard, the card above prints the call the tour needs, and the cruise port page has the port facts with their sources and the road from the terminal to the Old Town.