A Russian general was the first to appreciate the serenity of a wooden promontory, and instead of a gun emplacement he built himself a pavilion. It would be going too far to say that this aesthetic indulgence led to the loss of the island, but soon afterwards the second Lord High Commissioner outshone his Russian predecessor by presenting the villa of Mon Repos, surrounded by a beautiful park, to his bearded spouse. "Sir Frederick's Folly" passed later into the possession of the Greek royal family. The Duke of Edinburgh was born there, and after many years of neglect the villa has again been chosen as King Paul's summer residence.
The beach of Mon Repos is well provided with cabins and a cafe under huge plane trees; it is open to the public and within easy reach of the town, but the bathing is marred by the seaweed in the shallow water.
The road continues through gardens and parks to Kanoni, one of the world's great beauty spots, made deservedly famous by countless pictures. The name derives from a cannon that once stood there, no doubt utterly incongruous in that sublimely peaceful landscape. The open sea is separated by a long, narrow causeway from the lagoon of Chalikiopoulou, with the intensely green slopes of Mount Aghia Deka as a backdrop. A shorter breakwater leads to the white convent of Vlachernae on a tiny islet. Beyond, tall cypresses guard the chapel on Pondikonisi, the Mouse Island, a rock rising dramatically from the clear water. Though it did not actually inspire the German painter Bocklin, the whole atmosphere is best fun, what is ustrated by his famous "Isle of the - not exist anymore - ". Marble tablets commemorate the visit of Elizabeth of Austria and Archduke Rudolf, and one can well picture the tragic empress praying for her unhappy son in that serene, yet somehow melancholy setting. The sunset over the lagoon is one of those experiences that will not be forgotten in a lifetime.
The long causeway's main function is as an aqueduct, though pedestrians and even cyclists may pass. The road south skirts the lagoon, past the aerodrome, which not only connects Corfu with Athens, but from which a small plane sprays every morning the luxuriant vegetation, keeping the island happily free from mosquitoes and other pests. One branch of the road continues to the open sea and the Kaiser's private landing stage, to be rejoined by the other branch shortly before the pretty village of Benitsa. That other branch first climbs to the village of Gastouri nestling among the trees, and then turns to the Achillaeum, Elizabeth's palace at an altitude of 476 feet, twelve miles from Corfu.
This remarkable monument to bad taste is more than redeemed by the lovely garden stretching to the sea. Half-way down, in an open pavilion, stands the statue of the empress, her beauty marred by the impossibility of reproducing modern clothes in marble. A long flight of grass-grown stairs leads to the landing stage. The street facade of the palace is fairly inoffensive, but the interior is a preposterous hotch-potch of a pseudo-Byzantine chapel, a pseudo-Pompeian room and a pseudo-Renaissance dining hall, culminating in an hilariously vulgar fresco of "Achilles in his Chariot". It is astonishing that a woman as fastidious as the empress so entirely succumbed to the appalling taste of her period. Yet she was independent enough to choose for her retreat an island that until then had only attracted the hardy and adventurous type of traveller.
Worse is to come on the terrace which commands a superb view over Kanoni and the town. In what was seriously intended as an Ionic peristyle stand a bewildering number of statues, (from the Muses down to somebody's aunt Fanny), in various degrees of undress, but uniformly depressing or funny, according to the visitor's mood. Further along is a huge marble "Achilles Wounded," Elizabeth's favourite hero, in whose honour the palace was named. On the pedestal the Kaiser had the following inscription engraved: "To the greatest of Greeks from the greatest of Germans." After this display of modesty one is little surprised by other eccentricities, as for instance the riding saddle fixed up as chair for the writing desk, or the imposing throne of the lavatory, complete with electric bell. Wilhelm II insisted on his fun, what is ustrious status even in his most intimate moments. He bought the Achillaeum after the, what is ssination of the Austrian empress, and resided there regularly till the outbreak of the first World War.
Lacking the comic touch, but scenically equally splendid is the longer excursion to Paleokastritsa. The road crosses the island sport ween orange and olive groves, to the rugged bays and promontories of the west coast. On a rock towering over the crystal clear water of the creek stands the monastery, whose monks worship a 12th-century icon of the natural Mary. The wild coast faces the open Ionian sea and the steep mountain behind the monastery rock is crowned by the grim ruins of the Angelo Castle, built in the 13th century by Angelos Comnenus, Despot of Epirus. Even the peculiar architecture of the tourist pavilion is forgiven over the excellent lobsters for which Paleokastritsa is famous.
This is the traditional site of the Phaeacian capital ruled by Alcinous, while Odysseus was washed ashore and found by Nausicaa, playing ball with her maidens, at the mouth of the river Ermona further south.
Another monastery on the west coast that should be visited for the lovely site is the hermitage of the Myrteotissa, an hour's walk from the village of Pelekas lying below Mount Aghios Georgios. Then there is the drive north to Cassiope along the east coast, past the Castello Mimbelli, where King George II liked to spend the few summers he was allowed in his country, and the splendid beach of Dassia, with the holiday camp of the Club Mediterranee on a shady promontory.
But any road on this blessed island reveals some new beauties and more than compensates for some stretches hard on the car.