From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Crooked Venetian alleyways, architecture as grand and chiselled as that you’d find in central Paris, neon-bright bougainvillea and simple villages daubed blinding Greek-island white and blue… there are two ways to squeeze all this into a single trip.

You could take a grand European tour, which is fine if you’ve bags of time and plenty of cash. Or how about Corfu – the easy-access island in the Ionian Sea, where peaceful seaside idyll co-exists with eloquent outpost of European history, squeezed into a compact, manageable 600 sq km?

It all sounds light years from the Corfu of brochure cliché: after thriving as a decent package-holiday paradise in the 1970s, the place succumbed to chav hordes, and the wet-bikini-contest crowd are still in evidence.

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Luckily, the scene is neatly confined to Kavos, on the southern tip of the island. Elsewhere, the only ass you’ll encounter will probably be pulling a cart along tracks past timewarped villages and unspoilt beaches.

Corfu has resisted invasion before – notably fending off Ottoman incursions by sneakily allowing domination by the Venetians. They stayed for around 400 years, which explains the romantic Italian-style streets woven through the old town. Brief spells under the sway of the French and the British also left their mark – cricket is still played in the town square come summer – but this isn’t an island suffering from any identity crisis.

Unlike faster-moving mainland Greece, heritage, tradition and family are palpable forces here, which is why young people happily leave the towns’ buzz to return to their hillside villages for religious festivals and a visit to Grandma. After all, you can afford to be magnanimous when you’ve got the best of all worlds.

European Sophistication

Mingle with Corfu’s coffee-sippers. On the west side of the Spadina (the main square in the old town) lies the Liston, an arcaded street built during the French occupation of 1807-1814, modelled on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. The island’s social hub attracts residents for afternoons of gossip and cricket. (Along with ginger beer, the thunk of leather on willow is the main memento of British administration.) When the cricket isn’t on, this is prime people-watching territory: octagenarians creak by with shopping, magnificently shoe-polish-brown and crinkly; and love’s-young-dreams flirt in their new sunglasses. Expect to pay dearly for a coffee though – this kind of show doesn’t come cheap.

It’s an end-of-day treat to take a sundowner on the terrace of the Levant Hotel (Pelekas; 00 30 266 109 4230, www.levanthotel.com). You’re in for a mountainous climb in your hire car, up through the boho village of Pelekas, but people come from far and wide for the most captivating sunset on the island: a riot of raspberry and dove-grey. If you fancy living it up later, you’ll be tempted to linger in Pelekas. It’s unfussy, slightly hippy – a buzzy change from the beach.

Corfu’s rich, green beauty seduced many a Euro-royal. Eccentric Queen Elisabeth – aka Sissy – of the Austro-Hungarian Empire loved the island so much she commissioned a summer retreat here in 1890: Achillion Palace (Gastouri; 00 30 226 105 6245; £6) is a whimsy, pale and frilly as a Walls Viennetta, in tiered gardens. Exploring the house with its Rococo flourishes, and the gardens of statues and pungent wisteria, is a fine way to while away a hot afternoon. More tranquil is the Mon Repos Estate (£3), on the Kanoni Peninsula: birthplace of the Duke of Edinburgh, it’s now a museum of curious antiques: the outfits worn by the bluebloods over the years are amusing eye-openers.

Take a boat ride along the north of the island to see the little white house and favourite swimming spot of writer Gerald Durrell at Kalami, then try a fruit smoothie in the tavern at the glassy bay of Kouloura, where millionaires’ yachts rock and casual walkers drink in the views, across to Albania. Contact Captain Antonios (00 30 694 596 2818, www.corfu-antonios-m-boattrips.com; from £19), who offers group trips from 10.30am until 5pm and takes private groups.

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