Figuring out the origin of the name Corfu is a dizzying process, one that involves researching a couple of thousand years of Greek history. Or more.

So let’s settle for this: Corfu is not the name that the Greeks use. The traditional name for the island is Kérkyra, which honors the nymph who, in mythology, was abducted by the god Poseidon and stashed on the island.

According to one website, the more modern name is a derivation (or “corruption”) of the Byzantine Greek word Korypho, which means “twin crests” and refers to twin towers (one of which is the Old Venetian Fortress) located in the island’s capital city. Somehow the Italians began calling the island Corfu, and the name stuck.

Anyway, Corfu sits in the Ionian Sea directly west of Greece proper and just a few miles southwest of Albania. In fact, it’s just a short ferry ride from the Albanian beach town of Sarandē. (Albania was where my wife Mary Pat Treuthart and our Spokane friends Ann and Matt spent several days visiting  in late May: click here to begin that several-post-long travelogue.)

We’d planned from the beginning to follow our Albanian sojourn with a short stay in Corfu. So, after getting a ride to the port in Sarandē from the accommodating manager of the Da Luz Boutique Hotel, we emerged a half hour later on the island. After proceeding through a somewhat cursory passport check at Greek customs, we took a cab to the airport to pick up our rental car.

A note on driving: I’m an experienced European driver. I’ve driven in Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Greece, Austria, Spain and Portugal. All I’ve ever needed to rent a car is a valid U.S. driver’s license, though I usually go to the local AAA office to get an international driver’s license, too. I refuse to drive in any country where they drive on the left side of the road (to me, driving is largely instinctual), and I declined to drive in Morocco and Albania because I’d been advised not to. But as I’d driven in Greece before, I was willing to chance driving on Corfu as well.

Anyway, we arrived at the airport just as the skies opened and it began rain heavily. Umbrella in hand, I braved the downpour to pick up the rental car that we planned on using to explore as much of the island as we could.

And driving there turned out to be easy, nowhere near as difficult as braving the narrow roads of the Italian island of Pantelleria, which we visited in 2016. In fact, Corfu is far closer in geography to an Italian island that anything we’ve been trained to think of as Greek. In other words we spotted no white houses with blue roofs set under a blazing sky and overlooking a gleaming sea, as you’re likely to see in advertising photos of, for example, Santorini.

The color that best fits Corfu is green. It’s lush with trees and brush, from its coastal beaches (some 70 of them) to its highest points (at 2,972 feet, Mount Pantokrator rises above all the heights of this mostly hilly island).

I drove us to where Mary Pat had booked our rooms, at the Nido Mar-Bella resort. And while the place is pretty sweet, billing itself as “a small luxury hotel” that “offers five-star sophistication and peace, pure peace,” I want to stress that the nightly rate was – as I’ve stressed before – far less than what you’ll pay for an AVERAGE hotel in Seattle.

So, yes, we enjoyed our luxury (the private pool was icy cold but still … a private pool?), which included bountiful breakfasts every morning. And that first night we took in a gourmet dinner under the stars on the resort’s exclusive, reservations-only roof-top restaurant. Not only was our server Giorgios friendly and good at his job, but he was a wealth of information about what we might want to see.

Which was good because we spent most of our time on the road. Following that first night, we rose the next morning (mid-morning would be more accurate) and drove into Corfu town. Once a thriving port city, mostly during the four centuries that the Venetians ruled, the town still bears the marks of its ancient past.

One of those marks makes driving a real pain. Narrow, twisting streets don’t help traffic flow. And forget about parking anywhere near the city’s landmarks, especially the Venetian-built 14th-century Palaio Frourio (or Old Fortress of Corfu).

I did manage to find a spot maybe a half mile from the fortress, which gave us the opportunity to walk through the Corfu Central Market – a maze of shops and cafes that, on the sweltering hot day that we visited, was difficult to navigate because of the crowds of sight-seers.

Because of the heat, and torrid sun, we cut short our visit to the fortress (6 euro each to enter), avoiding the hike up what looked to be several hundred steps to the top. And after trudging back through the market, following a short stop to buy cold drinks and snacks, we decided to drive to one of Corfu’s more popular and scenic beaches, in the village of Palaiokastritsa.

There the parking was no problem, as I was happy to pay for a spot in a public lot, set just across the street from the main beach itself. It may be only one beach among several area bays, what a beach it is.

I described it this way in my journal: “A small bay set between two large rock outcroppings (shrub- and tree-covered) sheltering a semicircular beach with shops set on either end, attended by a several dozen or so sunbathers. Yellow buoys split off a half dozen boats tied to a single pier from the rest of the water, which is emerald green yet marked by patches of dark rock.”

While Matt disrobed and went for a swim, Mary Pat and I hugged the boardwalk, which offered us a bit of shade. “The air,” I wrote, “is filled with the sound of waves hitting the shore, children laughing and crying and conversations being held in a number of different languages, some of which I even recognize … but can’t begin to understand.”

We sat there, sipping at even more cold drinks that I had managed to score at a local store, marveling at all we were able to see. Marveling, too, that our Corfu venture had just begun.

Next up: How is it possible to get lost on such a small island?