Corfu Easter

Corfu spent centuries under Venetian rule rather than Ottoman, and its Easter shows it. Holy Week runs as a sequence of processions through the old town, accompanied by the island's philharmonic bands playing funeral marches written for the occasion, in uniform, at walking pace, with the town silent around them. The relics of Saint Spyridon are carried through the streets. Then on Holy Saturday morning, on the stroke of eleven, people throw large clay pots filled with water from their balconies onto the street below, and the town explodes in noise and red shards. By midnight the crowd is on the Spianada for the resurrection and fireworks.

What you actually see

• The botides - clay pots hurled from balconies at eleven on Holy Saturday morning.
• The philharmonic bands - competing town bands playing marches through the old streets.
• The Saint Spyridon procession - the island's central religious event, drawing the whole town.
• The midnight Spianada - candles, fireworks and the crowd on the great square.

When to go

Orthodox Easter usually falls later than the Western date, in April or May, and the schedule shifts every year. Good Friday evening and Holy Saturday morning are the two unmissable slots. Arrive by Thursday if you want a room and a decent position; the streets around the botides route fill more than an hour before eleven and do not thin until it is over.

Honest expectations

The town is packed to the point of discomfort, and rooms for that week cost several times normal and sell out months ahead. Expect to stand for hours with no chance of moving through the crowd. Pot shards travel and people do get cut, so the front row is no place for a child. Rain turns it into a wet crush.

Nearby

The old fortress, the Liston arcade and the hill villages of the island's interior are all within easy reach afterward.