Captain Corelli may have long since strummed the strings of his mandolin but the love affair with the Ionian Island he made his own is getting more powerful by the year.

Cephalonia is the largest of the seven-island Ionian group and undoubtedly the best, but then I’m biased. We looked at 13 destinations before building a villa here and we’ve never regretted it. Cephalonia was slow to bite the tourism apple and as a result, the islanders learnt a lot from other people’s mistakes.

Development is heavily restricted and low key - there are no buildings above three storeys, no hotels closer than 100 metres to the shore and none of those ribbon developments of discos and eating places aimed at the British. There is no crime, no unemployment and only one traffic light. There is also no Club 18-30, which has signed the death warrant for other resorts.

It's also surprisingly uncommercialised, and we soon noticed that Cephalonians take a lot of pride in their homeland with tasteful buildings, balconies dripping with bougainvillea, and lovely mosaic pavements in the capital, Argostoli, which are sprayed clean every morning.

You can’t even chop down trees. After the Second World War a photographer was dispatched to fly low over the island to record every tree and the planning department keeps a close eye on the builders.

Only 32,000 people live on Cephalonia but with Lefkas to the north and Zakynthos to the south the island is firmly on a tourist trail and grows each year as more accommodation becomes available and big tour operators move in. Despite the annual influx of visitors, mainly Italians, the island is so big that youl can still find quiet corners. Vast tracts of forest cloak the rugged limestone landscape, with ten peaks topping 5,000 feet.

The response to the film of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which was made here was a good yardstick of the Cephalonian mindset. On some islands the film would have taken over, but there is only one small restaurant near Sami called Captain Corelli's, and that's where the actors and film crew used to eat.

The film was good for Cephalonia. Although the critics panned it, it was a showcase for the island's scenery and boosted tourist numbers. In the novel by Louis de Bernieres, the captain escapes the Nazis by boat from a little place called Spartia, a charming village by the sea, built in higgledy-piggledy fashion to confuse pirates, and coincidentally, the place where we ended up building our house, Villa Athina. Spartia also has good eating places, the outdoor restaurant at Panas Bungalows and the Liakas Taverna. Mention my name and they’ll throw you out. Only joking.

But first things first. CV Travel offers a selection of smart villas with pools on Cephalonia and be sure to book a car otherwise you’ll miss out on seeing the best of the place. Try www.hertz.co.uk or www.europcar.co.uk. And then criss-cross the island, admiring white-capped mountains, dense green pine forests, olive groves, underground lakes and those lovely beaches on Greek travel posters.

The island is much too big to enjoy properly in anything under a week but there are certain places on the must-see list and the capital, Argostoli, is one of them. It’s a busy market town and port with streets lined with mulberry trees. There aren’t many historic buildings here because they all fell down in the earthquake of 1953 but it’s a nice town nevertheless.

Head for Cephalonia’s oldest restaurant, the family-run Kalafatis at the water’s edge, which is packed at lunchtime and deservedly so. Bag a seat overlooking the gulf of Argostoli, order a moussaka, a Cephalonian meat pie or a large plate of their delicious meze and then feed the fish with the bread provided for the purpose.

If you’re lucky you’ll see a very large turtle swimming past, a lovely creature reputed to be 50 years old.