Corfu Old Town (UNESCO): The Liston, Spianada, Campiello and St Spyridon

Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007, Corfu Old Town is unique in Greece: because it stood for four centuries as the fortified maritime gateway of the Venetian Adriatic ('The Door of Venice'), followed by French and British (1815 to 1864) protectorates, three great European empires left their architectural signatures around a single vast green square.

1. The Spianada (Esplanade) & The 1807 French 'Liston' Promenade

Start on the Spianada, the largest public plaza in Greece and the Balkans, where local teams still play British cricket on the grass every summer weekend beneath the shade of eucalyptus trees and the 1816 Ionic rotunda of the Maitland Monument:

• The Liston: bordering the entire western side of the Spianada runs the Liston, a magnificent arched stone gallery designed by French imperial engineer Mathieu de Lesseps as a direct architectural twin of the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. Under Venetian and French rule, only aristocrats whose family names were inscribed in the Golden Book (Libro d'Oro, or Lista) were permitted to stroll under its vaulted brass lanterns. Today, its marble sidewalk cafés are the prime spot on the island for a morning espresso or a bottle of local tsitsibira.
• The Palace of St Michael and St George (1819 to 1824): closing the northern end of the Spianada is a gleaming Maltese-limestone Georgian-Neoclassical palace built by British High Commissioner Sir Thomas Maitland, now housing the remarkable Museum of Asian Art of Corfu and a cliffside garden café overlooking the sea at Faliraki.

2. The Church of St Spyridon (1589) & Getting Lost in the 'Campiello'

Step behind the Liston into the labyrinth of kantounia, narrow, stepped limestone alleys flanked by four- and five-storey pastel houses with arched Venetian ground-floor arcades (volta):

1. The Church of Saint Spyridon: follow your eyes to the tallest tower in town, a red-domed bell tower identical to San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice. Inside the silver-lamp-lit sanctuary rests the velvet-and-silver reliquary of St Spyridon (270 to 348 AD), the beloved patron saint credited with saving Corfu four times from plague, famine and the 1716 siege.
2. The Campiello: climb the steps past the 1693 Venetian Kremasti Well on Platytera Square and the 1663 Venetian Town Hall, shopping along Nikiforou Theotoki and Evgeniou Voulgareos streets for kumquat sweets and olive wood.