Corfu port to the Old Town: the walk, the shuttle, the taxi

The cruise terminal at Neo Limani is about two kilometres from the Old Town. That is close enough that walking sounds obvious and far enough that a lot of people regret it, usually at the second industrial roundabout.

Here is what each of the three options actually involves, with the parts nobody puts on the pier.

The walk

Roughly two and a half kilometres from the terminal building to the Liston, and about half an hour at a steady pace.

The first fifteen minutes are the problem. You leave through the port gates onto a working quayside with cargo lanes, coach parking and no shade whatever, and there are stretches with no proper footway. It is not dangerous, and it is not pleasant either. After Mandouki it improves quickly: you pick up the old port, the New Fortress appears on your left, and the last part into the town is genuinely lovely.

Walk it if: you like arriving on foot, you are shod for it, and the temperature is under about twenty-eight degrees.

Do not walk it if: anyone in the party is unsteady, it is July or August in the middle of the day, or you have a fixed appointment at the other end. The heat on that quay is the single most underestimated thing about a Corfu shore day.

The shuttle

Most ships run a paid shuttle bus from the berth to a drop-off near the port gates or the edge of town. It takes a few minutes, it runs on a loop, and it is the right answer for a great many people.

Two things to check on the day rather than assume. First, where it actually drops you: "the town centre" can mean the Spianada, or it can mean a stop at the New Port from which you still walk fifteen minutes. Second, the time of the last return, because that is your real deadline, not all-aboard.

Ask both at the gangway. The answer changes by ship and by season, and the crew at the top of the gangway will know it.

The taxi

There is a rank outside the terminal. The journey into town is short and inexpensive by any city standard.

The friction is not the fare. It is that on a two-ship morning, three thousand people want the same forty cars in the same ninety minutes, and the queue at the rank at ten past nine is long and moves slowly. Coming back, the rank in town is at the Spianada rather than anywhere near where you have been shopping.

If a taxi is your plan, agree the fare before you get in, and do not leave the return to chance on a day when the ship sails at five.

The fourth option, and when it is worth it

A car booked in advance meets you inside the terminal with a name board, and the difference is not luxury, it is certainty. You know when it leaves, you know it comes back, and you know it is the same driver in the afternoon.

That is worth paying for in three situations, and honestly not much otherwise:

• A tight window. Under five hours alongside, or a tender day, where thirty minutes lost at a taxi rank is a site you do not see.
• Anyone who cannot manage the quay. A pushchair, a walking stick, a hip that does not do two kilometres of hot concrete.
• A plan that leaves town. The Achilleion, Kanoni, Palaiokastritsa. The moment your day is not only the Old Town, the walk and the shuttle stop being alternatives at all.

If none of those apply and you want the Old Town and lunch, the shuttle is genuinely the sensible answer, and we will tell you so on the telephone. If you would rather have the same walk with somebody who can read the churches, that is the Old Town on foot, which is a guided hour rather than a lift.

What we actually do differently

Our shore excursions are built backwards from the all-aboard time rather than forwards from the berth time, the port entrance fee is paid by us rather than added at the gate, and we collect at the terminal building rather than the port gate, which is a five-minute difference on a hot morning and a fifteen-minute one when it rains.

We also track the ship. If you arrive late, the plan is reshaped before you are ashore rather than compressed while you are in the car.

For a four-hour call, the honest set of options is smaller than the quayside suggests, and we have written the arithmetic out in what four hours ashore actually buys you. If your call is longer and you want a proper island day rather than a town morning, the four-hour private tour is the shortest one we run that still leaves the town behind.

The one number to write down

The all-aboard time, not the sailing time. They are usually thirty minutes apart and only one of them is your deadline.

Write it on your hand if you have to. Every driver we send is given it, and the return is built around that number rather than around how much of the itinerary is left.