The Twin Fortresses of Corfu: The 1546 Old Fortress and 1576 New Fortress

Corfu's modern European name comes from the Byzantine Greek word Korypho ('City of the Twin Peaks'), referring to the two steep, fortified rocky hills that guard the eastern and western ends of the Old Town. When you walk between the Old Venetian Fortress (Palaio Frourio) on the eastern sea promontory and the New Venetian Fortress (Neo Frourio) above the Old Port, you are walking through the greatest Renaissance military engineering project in the Mediterranean.

1. The Old Venetian Fortress (Palaio Frourio, 1546, East of the Spianada)

Jutting 600 metres out into the sea directly opposite the Liston, this twin-peaked rocky peninsula was the site of the original 6th-century Byzantine town before the Venetians (led by famous Veronese military architect Michele Sanmicheli) dug the Contrafossa sea moat in the 1540s to isolate it completely from the land and surrounded it with two colossal polygonal bastions (Savorgnan and Martinengo):

• The 1840 Doric Church of St George (Looking Like an Ancient Greek Temple): walk along the flat lower southern sea-promenade inside the fortress to an astonishing sight: a classic Greek Doric colonnaded temple standing right above the turquoise water. It was actually built in 1840 by the British garrison as the Anglican garrison church of St George before being consecrated as an Orthodox church.
• Climb to the 1822 Lighthouse at the Summit (Castel a Terra, 15 Minutes Uphill): follow the stone ramps and vaulted subterranean Venetian tunnels up to the 65-metre cross and lighthouse at the very top of the rock for a 360-degree view over all of Corfu Old Town, Vidos Island and the Albanian mountains.

2. The New Venetian Fortress (Neo Frourio, 1576 to 1645, Above the Old Port)

After the devastating 1537 Ottoman siege showed that the growing residential suburbs of the town outside the Old Fortress needed protection, the Venetians hired military architect Ferrante Vitelli in 1576 to level two thousand houses on the hill of St Mark at the north-western edge of town and build the New Fortress. Look up at the monumental dry-stone bastion walls above the Old Port fish market to spot carved marble reliefs of the Winged Lion of St Mark, then climb through its labyrinth of brick-vaulted bombproof galleries to the upper parade ground overlooking the port and the Ionian Sea.