To Corfu For the Weekend? Yes, But Those Tolls Are Gonna Hurt
Driving to Corfu from Athens is easy but fiscally perplexing, as we found out
Looking at a map of Greece, the island of Corfu may strike you as an anomaly because opposite its northern shore is the mainland not of Greece, but Albania. So before you even jump in the car, you know you’re in for something a little different.
The idea of a good old-fashioned American-style road trip doesn’t always fit in Europe, and that’s not only because the notion of roadside culture — fast food restaurants, quirky cultural attractions etc. — is practically nonexistent, but because many roads are toll roads and the fees add up.
When you have a 293 mile drive from Athens to catch the ferry to Corfu — not at all a long distance by American standards — but have to stop what seems like a dozen times along the way to fork over $2 or $4 or — wait for it — $15 — it takes a sledgehammer to that old adage of value the journey as well as the destination. Because it isn’t just the ridiculousness of having to fork over what amounts to more than just pocket change, it’s tiring to have to keep stopping in order to do so.
The Greek word for motorway is odos. Attiki Odos, Olympia Odos, Egnatia Odos, those are at least three you probably need to take to drive from Athens to Igoumenitsa, where the ferry is. After the first couple of hours on a journey that took around four and half hours, I stopped counting how many times I had to stop to pay the toll. It started to feel like I was living out that myth where you have to pay the toll the cross the river Styx!
My complaint is not that there are tolls to pay. After all, not every state in America is California, where for the most part road tolls are nonexistent. It is having to stop to pay repeatedly on what it is, physically at least, the same stretch of road. On the Olympia Odos alone, for example, unless I was dreaming it, there were no fewer than 5 toll stops. Instead of stopping 5 times to pay about $14 in fees, would it not make more sense, and save some gas too, to simply stop once or twice?
The roads are nice and modern, but between the going and the coming I amassed a stack of receipts fatter than Lizzo’s…ego. Two euros here, 3.25 euros there, 1.8 here, 3.50 there and oh, by the way, that fancy Rio–Antirrio Bridge across the Gulf of Corinth? It costs a whopping €14.50, or more than $15.70, to cross it. One way.
Adding up the tolls, it was about $35. With the bridge, it’s $50. Plus, of course, another $50 to get back. In addition to the $100 you have to spend to do Corfu this way, there is the cost of the ferry, which of course costs more with the car: I paid around $82 round trip with Kerkyra Lines.
At this point it must be said that you might be better off flying. A one-way ticket to from Athens to Corfu off peak shouldn’t cost more than about $65.
But you do need a car in Corfu. The Old Town is pretty but sadly stained by the overtourism that comes with too many cruise ship passengers and too much global addiction to Instagram. While it remains my view that all American car rental companies exist to rip you off, in Corfu it might be worth renting a car, and using a locally-owned company to do so.
As for the Corfiots, on the whole I found them to be, like the Italians, not the friendliest of people. That sometimes comes with the territory when you live on am island that’s prettier than most.
In three days you can see all the major sites on Corfu. To unwind a bit and enjoy the beaches and such, no fewer than five days. And plenty of gas — which, American readers take note, is also pricey. Count on $85 or so to fill that tank.
