Empress Sisi's Achilleion Palace (1890), Gastouri and Kaiser's Bridge

Ten kilometres south of Corfu Old Town in the cypress-and-olive-covered hills of Gastouri (25 minutes on Blue City Bus #10 from San Rocco Square / Methodiou Street) stands the Achilleion Palace, the romantic neoclassical retreat built between 1889 and 1891 by Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary.

1. The Story of Empress Sisi, Kaiser Wilhelm II & Achilles

Heartbroken after the tragic death of her only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, at Mayerling in 1889, Empress Elisabeth of Austria sought refuge on her favourite island of Corfu. Obsessed with Homer's Iliad and identifying with the tragic Greek hero Achilles, she commissioned Italian architect Raffaele Caritto to build a Pompeian-and-neoclassical palace dedicated to Achilles at 145 metres above the sea. After Sisi was assassinated in Geneva in 1898, the palace was purchased in 1907 by German Kaiser Wilhelm II, who used it as his spring diplomatic residence until World War I (and in 1981 its casino salons starred in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only). (Practical note: while the interior palace rooms undergo multi-year structural restoration, the extraordinary Sculpture Gardens, the Peristyle of the Muses and the Imperial Terraces are open to visitors with a reduced garden ticket).

2. The Two Contrasting Statues of Achilles in the Gardens

Walking through the palm-and-cypress gardens past the Ionic colonnade of the Nine Muses reveals a fascinating clash of imperial personalities in two famous sculptures:

• Sisi's 'Dying Achilles' (Achilleas Thniskon, 1884 by Ernst Herter): the emotional centrepiece of the garden, a white marble sculpture showing the wounded hero collapsing to the ground as he tries to pull Paris's fatal arrow from his heel.
• Kaiser Wilhelm II's Colossal Bronze 'Triumphant Achilles': when the German Kaiser bought the palace, he felt a dying hero did not suit the German Empire, so he commissioned an 11.5-metre-tall gilded-spear-wielding bronze colossus of a victorious Achilles standing on the cliff edge looking north toward Corfu Town.

3. Gastouri Village & The Kaiser's Bridge

After visiting the palace, stroll 5 minutes into traditional Gastouri Village (stopping at historic Bakalogatos bakery for warm village bread), then descend 3 km to the sea on the Benitses road to see the stone piers of the Kaiser's Bridge.