Corfu is renowned for its numerous celebrations. As regards religious festivals and numerous church anniversaries, the locals preserve and foster both their own traditions and those of the New Years Eve Carnival, the National Greek holidays and the Ionian Island holiday alike. Guests are always heartily welcome – so come and join in the celebrations!

1st January – New Year
6th January – Theofania (Epiphany)
Carnival Monday (floating holiday)
25th March – National holiday
Easter (floating holiday)
1st May – Labour Day
21st May – National Ionian Island holiday
Pentecost (floating holiday)
15th August – The Assumption of the Most Holy Virgin Mary
28th October – National holiday
25/26th Dec – Christmas

In 2008, the Greek Orthodox Church will celebrate Easter Sunday on the 27th April (Catholics, Protestants and Anglicans celebrate on the 23rd March in the same year).

We will be happy to inform our hotel guests which church anniversaries - and other festivals - are taking place during the time of their visit.

The Venetian influence on Carnival on Corfu is still clearly visible. Jubilant processions take place on the three Sundays before Carnival Monday. The highlight is the third Sunday. On Carnival Monday itself, families enjoy an excursion into the countryside.

Easter is the most important festival of the Greek Orthodox Church. It is suitably celebrated on Corfu in all its splendour and grandeur.

On Good Friday, the church congregations honour the suffering of Christ in numerous processions. The dignified procession to honour Saint Spiridon begins on the morning of Easter Saturday and is followed by the famous spectacle of the “first resurrection”: Water-filled clay jugs are tossed out of the windows and burst onto the streets. 

The celebratory resurrection ceremonies then take place in the church. The joyous call “Christos anesti – Christ is arisen” resounds shortly after midnight and everybody exchanges good tidings and happy Easter greetings. The open-air fireworks begin shortly thereafter. The celebrations extend into the early hours of the morning.