The Achilleion- Princess Sissy's Palace

The Achilleion summer palace was built in 1892 in the Pompeian style on a lushly green hill at Gastouri, nine kilometres south of Corfu Town, on plans by the Italian architects Raffaelle Carito and Antonio Landy as a hermitage, a place of quiet, for the Empress of Austria Elizabeth (better known as Sissy). It houses a great number of sculptures of personages from Greek mythology and Homeric heroes, most characteristic of which is that of Achilles, from whom the palace took its name (15). The Achilleion was eventually purchased by the German Kaiser Wilhelm in 1907. It operates as a museum and hou­ses cultural events in summer.