Peroulades, Ioanian Islands, Greece
Cape Drastis is the headland at the northwest corner of Corfu, a run of pale cliffs and rock stacks below the village of Peroulades. You can't drive to the cape itself. From Peroulades you walk down a dirt track, roughly half a kilometre. Plan for wind, too. It blows hard out there whatever the season.
Two other stops on the same stretch of coast belong on the same trip. Loggas Beach, just south of the cape, is Peroulades' sunset beach, under tall clay cliffs. The Canal d'Amour is a short way east along the north coast in Sidari, a narrow sea channel cut into the rock. You can do all three in an afternoon and evening if you have a car or scooter, and Sidari has its own bus route.
Most of what follows comes from @grecki-bazar-ewy, a TravelFeed writer whose grandchildren live in Sidari. She has been coming back to this corner of the island for years and has written about all three places (in Polish). We've added what the bus operator and a few other sources say, and flagged where those sources disagree.
Where Cape Drastis is
Peroulades is a small village in the far northwest of Corfu, about 40 km from Corfu Town. Its neighbours are Avliotes, Agios Stefanos and Sidari. In her post on Peroulades and Loggas Beach, @grecki-bazar-ewy notes that it's an old Venetian-era settlement. Some houses still carry Venetian coats of arms, and you'll see high stone walls with wooden doors around the courtyards. The name comes from a Venetian family name, Peroulis, though older villagers connect it with the Greek word for pearl. Tourist infrastructure in the village itself is thin. People come for the coastline.
Cape Drastis is north of Loggas, where the west coast turns the corner into the north coast. In her post on Cape Drastis, the Canal d'Amour and Sidari she calls it the Greek cape closest to Italy. She also explains why she writes about Peroulades and Sidari together. All the land from Loggas Beach to the Canal d'Amour once belonged to Peroulades, and the settlement there goes back to the Bronze Age. When people began building houses near the canal, the new village was called Sidari. Today Sidari is much bigger than its parent village.
Getting down to the cape from Peroulades
There's no road for cars all the way to the cape, but from Peroulades you can walk down a dirt track, a distance she puts at about half a kilometre. She also warns that strong winds blow there at any time of year. That's worth taking seriously on a cliff edge, and it means a calm-looking morning in town tells you very little about conditions at the point.
The one thing we couldn't pin down is whether you'll find a gate. Reports over the years don't agree. Tripadvisor reviews from the mid-2010s describe a locked gate, a "private area" sign and a charge of a few euros per person. Some later visitors found no one there and walked straight through, and several recent independent guides describe the viewpoint as free to visit. None of them is an official source. So bring a little cash just in case, and don't count on an attendant or any facilities.
If you're doing all three stops, Drastis works best late in the afternoon. Her photo above was taken at about 7:30pm in late September, and from the cape it's a short move south to Loggas for sunset.
Loggas Beach and the café on the cliff
Loggas is Peroulades' main beach, and on a summer evening it's the busiest place in the area. According to @grecki-bazar-ewy, crowds of tourists and Greeks alike drive down every day. Very high clay cliffs rise straight up above a thin strip of sand. People also use the natural clay from the cliffs as a beauty treatment, and she says plenty of visitors do.
On top of the cliffs is a café-restaurant called 7th Heaven. She describes it as fully open-air, with no permanent buildings. The seating areas are divided by screens of wood, glass, stone and flowers, and the place has been extended year by year. At the very edge of the cliff there's a glass viewing platform. She found it remarkable but doesn't recommend it if you're afraid of heights. Local Greeks drive out for an iced coffee after work and just sit looking at the sea, and the café also hosts music nights and private events. We haven't been able to confirm its current hours or prices, so check before planning a whole evening around it.
Sunset is the reason to come. Loggas is sometimes called Sunset Beach, and @grecki-bazar-ewy goes there often for it. One evening a few years before her post, the sun went down to the music of a very good saxophonist, and she writes that the whole crowd went still and that plenty of people were in tears.
East to Sidari and the Canal d'Amour
Sidari is on the north coast, just east of the Peroulades headland and 32 km from Corfu Town. Its stretch of coast is the same mix as around Peroulades: low cliffs running out into the sea, with small coves and underwater caves cut by wind and erosion. The best-known formation is the Canal d'Amour (Kanali tou Erota in Greek), a narrow channel of blue water between two walls of layered rock. Swimming is allowed, and the story goes that a couple who swim through it together will stay in love for life.
She has seen the canal many times from the beach. In a later post about walking the length of the canal she describes doing it differently. From the main road, you reach the canal by walking a short way along the beach and passing the little river that runs through town. On that visit she found a footpath along the top of the cliffs that she hadn't known about. It follows the rock edge past the canal and brings you out at the far end of Sidari. Do this walk if the beach view isn't enough. She came away struck by how many shapes, colours and shadows the rock showed from up there.
Children tend to love the river even though it looks murky, because it's full of turtles. She mentions this in both Sidari posts. In the later one she adds that Sidari had recently built a sewage treatment plant, so the river may look and smell better before long. Whether the turtles stay is another question.
Be careful on the cliffs
On her walk along the canal she found a memorial to a young man who died there, and she writes that accidents like his happen every summer. The canal exists because this rock erodes easily, and the same goes for the edges you're standing on. The Greek newspaper To Vima has reported a Welsh tourist who was seriously hurt in a fall onto the rocks along this coast. Nearby swimmers got him onto safer rock with an inflatable before emergency crews carried him out over rough ground.
None of this means you should skip the walk. Stay well back from the edge, and if you swim the canal, get in from the water side rather than from above.
Is Sidari a good base for Cape Drastis?
It depends on what you want from your evenings. Sidari is a busy, growing resort full of shops, restaurants, bars and hotels. @grecki-bazar-ewy describes a main street where, at night, bars and clubs compete with live music and karaoke, and street artists offer portraits and henna. Some restaurants have their entrance on the street and tables right on the beach at the back. There are car, scooter and bicycle rentals, a pharmacy and a doctor, and three larger supermarkets on the edge of town (she names Markato, Kazianis and Dielas), plus a shop selling British groceries.
The downside is noise. She visits often but says she wouldn't want to live there in summer. That isn't about the tourists themselves but about the mix of music from different bars, which carries into houses from morning until late at night. If you want quiet evenings, look at Peroulades instead. It has far less tourist infrastructure, but Drastis and Loggas are on its doorstep. If you want bars and a beach right outside, Sidari makes sense, and from there the cape is a short trip west.
Sidari also has a small harbour. In summer, she notes, boats run from there to the small islands offshore, Erikousa, Othoni and Mathraki. In winter Sidari looks completely different, as her off-season photos show.
Getting there without a car
Corfu's long-distance buses are run by KTEL Kerkyras, the "Green Buses". Their North Corfu route list includes the A2 to Sidari and the A8 to Avliotes, the village next to Peroulades. No route on the list is named for Peroulades itself, so check the operator's current timetable for whether a service stops there, and how often, before you rely on it. Frequencies vary by season and we haven't seen a timetable we could confirm for this year. From Peroulades you still have the track down to the cape on foot.
With your own wheels it's simple. Peroulades and Sidari are both on the island's northwest corner, and Sidari has rental shops for cars, scooters and bikes if you're staying there without one.
For more of the country, see our Greece destination page.
FAQ
Can you drive to Cape Drastis?
Not to the cape itself. According to @grecki-bazar-ewy, there's no car access to the cape itself. From Peroulades you walk down a dirt track of about half a kilometre.
Is there an entrance fee for Cape Drastis?
Reports conflict. Visitor reviews from the mid-2010s describe a gate and a fee of a few euros per person, while more recent independent guides describe free access. There's no official source either way, so bring some cash and don't count on facilities.
Is Cape Drastis near the Canal d'Amour?
Yes. Cape Drastis sits below Peroulades on the northwest tip of Corfu, and the Canal d'Amour is in Sidari, the next village east along the north coast. The land between them once all belonged to Peroulades. Loggas Beach is just to the south of the cape, so the three make an easy loop.
Can you swim in the Canal d'Amour?
Yes, swimming is allowed, and the story goes that couples who swim through it together stay in love for life. Get in from the water rather than jumping from the cliffs: @grecki-bazar-ewy, who visits Sidari often, writes that accidents happen on these cliffs every summer.
