Despite its popularity as a tourist destination, Corfu is sufficiently large enough to easily escape the crowds. Its fertile interior shimmers with olive groves, its woody cypress-clad mountains are studded with tiny villages and its coves are fringed by cobalt-blue water.

This is the garden isle of the Ionian. Unlike many Greek islands, Corfu owes its lush and varied landscape to the presence of fresh water and its mild winters.  Popular with artists and writers for over five hundred years, Shakespeare himself is said to have stayed on the island, apparently inspiring him to write The Tempest. Nowadays it fully deserves its growing reputation as one of the Mediterranean’s finest holiday destinations. Certainly, there is romantic quality in its many secret corners and hidden bays, particularly on its unspoilt northeast coast.

Corfu is only the 7th largest of the Greek islands but, despite its modest size of 600 sq km, is one of the most diverse and interesting of all of them. The island boasts numerous palaces, museums, fortresses, archaeological sites, over 120 beaches, a couple of hundred villages and nearly a thousand churches. There are also golf courses, horse-riding centres and five cricket grounds hosting international tournaments.

The entire old city of Corfu Town is declared a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s an eclectic mix of old and new; castles, ancient ruins, gracious mansions, narrow streets and wide plateias, and a cricket ground, are clustered around a sheltered harbour. Once through the outskirts, the real Corfu begins. Farming and horticulture dominate the landscape, with sleepy villages tucked into the folds of the hills, dominated in the north by the impressive Mount Pantokrator, the island’s highest peak.

The natural environment is world famous, thanks to the Durrell family. It is home to a significant mountain range with valleys and rivers, waterfalls, three lagoons and numerous caves both above and below the sea. As well as the island’s citrus fruit and cypress trees there are more than 3 million olive trees, creating forest canopies over 30m tall. The majority of the olive trees on Corfu are more than 500 years old, planted during the Venetian rule of the island.

The busiest resorts, with the usual tourist attractions, are mainly in the south of the island. Our properties are situated along the beautiful northeast coast, where the pace of Corfiot life is much slower and more peaceful. Tree-clad mountain slopes, wooded bays with delightful beaches, small traditional fishing villages and above all the warm waters of the Ionian Sea, all make for an outstanding holiday. Many have taken a lifetime to discover the secrets of this beautiful island, but the experience of just a week or a fortnight will easily last a lifetime.