The Liston forms the western boundary of the Esplanade. This terrace, with its series of arches fronting the road, was designed by the Imperial French after 1807, and is a typical example of its era. Strongly reminiscent of the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, it was built at about the same time. Today the Liston is the town's most traditional meeting place, where people gather to read newspapers from the nearby kiosk and drink coffee or ouzo at the old-established cafes. Here you may watch cricket matches on summer afternoons while sipping ginger beer. Here you can watch parades by the philharmonic bands or the majorettes, as well as religious processions. Here also you may well run into an old friend you've not seen for ages. In the Venetian dialect, the word 'lista' meant a wide and completely straight road; another meaning was a long wooden measuring rod. Since people were in the habit of writing lists of names on interminable registers it became customary to use the word lista for these registers as well as for a straight street. The suffix -on denotes enlargement, thus Liston is a great register or a great street. In every Venetian town the most important street was called the Liston, just as in Venice there is the Liston in St. Mark's Square. When the buildings of the Corfiot Liston were constructed by the French (1807 - 1814) Venice no longer existed as a state, but the word had already entered the Corfiot vocabulary together with thousands of other venetian terms, and as a result this new straight and wide road was named the Liston.