Kerkira (Corfu Town)
We did not book a Princess shore excursion at this port. Our plan was to catch a bus to see the Achilleion Palace, come back to Corfu Town and see some sites (Church of St. Spyridon, Esplanade, Old and New Forts), find a nice place to have lunch, and shop.
Unfortunately, it rained most of the day, so we tried to see and do as much as we could. We got off the ship around 8:30-9:00 am, and proceeded to exit the pier area. We exited the pier area, turned left, and continued along the coast. After passing the New Fort and taking some pictures we took a right to go more into Corfu Town. After a little while, we luckily ended up at a local bus terminal and asked about how to get to the Achilleion Palace. The number 10 bus (blue local bus) left about every 2-3 hours for the palace (7:00, 10:00, 12:00, 2:00, 5:00) and took about 20 minutes to get there (so, the return times to Corfu Town were at 7:20, 10:20, 12:20, etc). We bought round trip tickets for 1.70 Euro each and then had to walk about 10-15 minutes to find the proper bus stop to wait at. We walked to find the bus stop and ended up walking around the local shops because we had plenty of time before the 10:00 am bus.
The bus was about 10 minutes late, but was smooth sailing to the Achilleion Palace. We got off the bus, walked by a few souvenir stands, and reached the entrance to the palace. It cost us 6 Euro each to enter.
We quickly took a few pictures from the outside of the palace, as it was still raining, and headed inside. We were only allowed to walk through the 6 or so downstairs rooms and it was pretty crowded inside (partly because of the rain and partly because there were about 3 tour groups going through). It took us at the most 30 minutes to see everything we wanted to see inside, so we then went back out into the rain toward the garden areas. With all the rain and many of the floors outside made of marble, it was very slippery. Even with my steady footing, I slipped once. Anyways, in the main garden area were the two famous statues of Achilles (whom which the palace is named after). There is also a very nice view of the island from here.
So, after about 1 hour we were done with the palace, so we still had another hour and 20 minutes before the bus back to Corfu Town. We browsed through the local souvenir stands, decided against eating around here, and sat around for the bus. The bus finally came, and the second we got off the bus we proceeded to find a place to eat some Greek food. We stopped at a Sandwich-o-Mania and I had a pretty good sandwich made with a pita, kebab (combination of beef and lamb), french fries (fries were inside the pita), and tzatziki (yogurt based sauce), while my wife had a chicken pita sandwich.
After lunch, we just walked around Corfu Town to shop. We still had time to see the other sites I had planned on seeing, but we got lazy and just felt like shopping and exploring. After some walking though, we ended up in the Esplanade and did end up seeing the Old Fort as well. So, the only site we didn't see was the Church of St. Spyridon. Anyways, we finally found the coastline again and followed it back to our ship at around 3:00-4:00 pm. We walked 5.8 miles according to my wife's pedometer.
Full cruise review: http://www.epinions.com/content_140525997700