How difficult is the Corfu Trail?

Two unlike halves. The trail turns its back on Kavos and runs south first, to the ruined Arkoudilas monastery on the clay cliffs at the tip of the island, then drops to the beach and climbs the cliff again into fields and shady olive-grove tracks. After Lefkimmi it becomes dirt roads across the southern plain, flat, agricultural and quiet, with nothing on the line itself for hours and little to look at beyond the next olive terrace. It improves at the coast: shore walking to Agios Georgios, then a strip of dunes carrying a juniper forest between the sea and Lake Korission, where soft sand makes the going slower than the contours suggest. It finishes on tracks and a stretch of road above the coast to Paramonas.

Navigation: Yellow CT signs at junctions with yellow paint marks between them, thin enough in places that walkers carry the GPX and use it. Two spots account for most of the trouble. The start, because the route heads south to the cape before it heads north and the first markers only appear near Cape Asprokavos. And Lefkimmi, whose run of adjoining villages and back streets is the place walkers most often report losing the line in the south.

In poor weather: The opening cliff section is cut into clay, so it is greasy rather than merely wet after rain, and one walker found the path at the beach exit collapsed and needing a scramble. From the shore to Halikounas there is no shade and no shelter from wind off the west coast, and the sand is hard work in either. The plain in between is low and sheltered, and rain only makes its dirt roads rutted.

Escape options: Lefkimmi at km 16 is the only town in the south, sits on the main road down the island and has the second ferry port. On the plain a road is rarely far away, though usually a quiet one. The dune strip is the exception: for the eight kilometres alongside Lake Korission the water is on your inland side and the only ways off are back to Agios Georgios or forward to Halikounas.

The trail stops being a coastal walk here. It climbs sharply off the beach at Paramonas onto the coastal ridge and turns inland, and from Ano Pavliana on it is village-to-village walking across the Messongi basin, olive groves, heathland and quiet lanes, with a settlement every kilometre or two and few long views. The two climbs that matter come in the second half. First the pull from Strongyli up to the chapel and viewpoint on Mount Stavros and the string of ridge settlements behind it. Then the sharp ascent of Agii Deka, Corfu's second summit, identifiable from half the island by the radar dome on top, with a cobbled mule path down the far side. The last stretch to Pelekas is minor roads and undulating tracks along the tops above the west coast.

Navigation: The climbs are the easy part to follow; the villages are not. This section threads a lot of them, and the ridge settlements between Komianata and Makrata run into one another with no obvious line through. Walkers report hill-village navigation as the work of this stage rather than any single junction. The ascent from Ano Garouna is unambiguous, being one path to a summit with a radar station on it.

In poor weather: The cobbled mule path off Agii Deka is worn stone and slick in the wet. The summit is the most exposed ground in the southern half of the island and the first place low cloud costs you anything, since the view is the whole reason for the climb. Everything between Pavliana and Strongyli is low, wooded and sheltered.

Escape options: Ano Pavliana, Vouniatades and Strongyli sit on the minor road network. From the Stavros ridge the main east-coast road at Benitses is a short steep drop below you, and it is the quickest way out of the middle of this section. Agii Deka village, Sinarades and Pelekas are all on roads running into Corfu Town.

Three unrelated pieces of walking in a short section. It starts by dropping off the Pelekas ridge to the west-coast beaches, a steep descent to Myrtiotissa and an equally steep climb away from it on old paths, which is the hardest hour here. Then the Ropa valley, level farmland where the trail simply crosses a plain and the pace picks up on its own. After Giannades it climbs back into olive-covered hills, rolling rather than steep and shaded most of the way, and stays in them until Liapades. The finish is the piece with a reputation: a rough footpath over the headland into Paleokastritsa, leaving from the far end of the beach and climbing over rock above the sea. It takes about half an hour and there is a road round.

Navigation: Straightforward until the end. The link from Liapades to Paleokastritsa is where walkers report going wrong: the path leaves from the far end of the beach, climbs over rock, and is poorly marked at the point where you need it to be clear. The trail's own guide calls it a very difficult footpath. If it looks wrong, or the rock is wet, the road round is the honest answer rather than the soft one.

In poor weather: The headland path is bare rock above the sea and is a poor choice in the wet. Everything faces west, so a late finish walks into the sun and the beaches and the headland give no shade at all; the olive hills between Giannades and Liapades are shaded throughout.

Escape options: The least committing section of the trail. Glyfada, Vatos, Ermones, Giannades, Liapades and Paleokastritsa all have road access and are resorts or working villages rather than hamlets. The only place you are committed to your decision is the headland path itself, and that is half an hour long.

The hardest section and the most varied. It leaves Paleokastritsa on a network of cobbled footpaths up to Lakones and stays high on old donkey paths to Makrades, then loses the whole of that height down a footpath zig-zagged into a cliff face, which the trail's own guide calls one of the most remarkable in Greece. From sea level at Agios Georgios Pagon the trail turns inland and crosses the broad northern head of the island village by village, Prinilas, Pagi, Aspiotades, Agros, Rekini, Valanio, Sokraki, Spartilas, with a climb of a hundred or two between most of them on lanes, farm tracks, cobbled sections and old paths. It is relentless rather than steep, and there is no coast and no resort in the whole of it. The last stretch climbs a gully on a steep mountain footpath to the chapel and viewpoint at Taxiarchis, where the mountain country begins.

Navigation: Obvious and well travelled as far as the coast at Agios Georgios Pagon. The inland half is where the marking thins and the linking paths between villages get overgrown, and it is the part of the trail walkers most often follow on a GPX rather than on signs. The villages are the specific difficulty: Agros and Agios Athanasios both sprawl, and the line through them is not self-evident.

In poor weather: The zig-zag cliff descent faces west and is exposed to both afternoon sun and any wind off the sea, and it is not a place to hurry on wet rock. The cobbled sections, out of Paleokastritsa and again into Sokraki, are worn smooth and slippery when wet. The inland valleys are the opposite problem, sheltered and humid with little moving air.

Escape options: Agios Georgios Pagon at km 111 is the last coastal resort with a proper road and everything on it. Inland, Rekini is the one point where the trail meets a through road rather than a village lane. Elsewhere the villages have roads but quiet ones, and getting off this crossing in a hurry means someone coming to fetch you.

Almost all the climbing is over in the first three kilometres. The trail comes up onto the karst plateau under the Pantokrator summit, which the trail's own guide calls Corfu's wildest scenery, bare limestone with nothing cultivated and nothing to shelter behind, and crosses it past the deserted settlement of Palies Sinies to the col on the main ridge. A good path drops from there into Old Perithia, a half-ruined Byzantine village in a high valley and the last real stop before the sea. Below it the trail descends a wooded gorge, rocky and uneven with a lot of undergrowth and the slowest ground of the day, then eases through olive terraces and small settlements onto the northern coastal plain. The final kilometres are flat: the beach, the Antinioti lagoon channels, and a rough shore path around the bare headland at the island's northern tip to Agios Spyridon.

Navigation: The plateau is open ground with tracks running several ways and few features to steer by, and it is the one place on the trail where mist would genuinely matter. The descent from Old Perithia is marked but overgrown, so it is a matter of picking up paint rather than seeing a path. At the end the two ways across the Nisi peninsula, the lane and the marked path past the ruined monastery, rejoin the same shore trail, so either is fine.

In poor weather: The plateau is windswept for about five kilometres with nothing to get behind, and in low cloud its tracks are hard to tell from one another. The gorge below Old Perithia is shaded but humid and holds still air. The closing coastal stretch is flat, unshaded and slow on tired legs, and the shore path round the headland is rough where it crosses rock.

Escape options: Spartilas, just before this section starts, has the road down to Barbati and Ipsos. On the plateau the only tarmac is the summit road to Pantokrator. Old Perithia at km 143 has a road out towards Loutses and Kassiopi, and from the coast at km 151 the north-coast road runs a few hundred metres inland of the trail all the way to the finish.