Achilleion is a palace built in Corfu by Empress of Austria Elisabeth of Bavaria, also known as Sissi after a suggestion by Austrian Consul Alexander von Watzberg.[1] Sissi was a woman obsessed with beauty and very powerful but tragically vulnerable since the loss of her only son, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria in the Mayerling affair in 1889.

History
Sissi bought the property from Corfiot Petros Vrailas Armenis who was also a friend. The palace was designed by Italian architect Raffaele Caritto and cost nine million gold francs, a huge sum at the time. Ernst Herter, a famous German sculptor, was commisioned to create works inspired from Greek mythology.

European role
Briefly reclaiming the status of centre for European diplomacy that it possessed during the Kaiser years, the Achilleion has been used in recent times for the European summit meeting in 1994 and in 2003 it hosted the meeting of the European ministers for Agriculture.