WE SAW them, those famous yachts, as they snoozed heavily at anchor below the Rothschild villa, just outside the bay of Agios Stefanos.

They were so big, one even had a seaplane on board. Our boat was an eight-seater outboard-motor job, with the range to take us from the northern port of Kassiopi to the coves just south of yachtland.

As we passed by we speculated about who might be on board the gilded ships, got it wrong, and then looked out for good snorkelling water. We did put ashore at the Agni Taverna, where Peter Mandelson and George Osborne ate and spoke so indiscreetly, but only so that my eldest could use the loos. One day there'll be a plaque.

Our trip was all about this particular stage in the family's collective life. Could we devise something that would allow the teenagers to holiday with us, and not feel after three days as though they were locked up in a well-padded, loving lunatic asylum?

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Our answer was to find a villa in a place where they could bring some friends, enjoy some autonomy and be able to do young person sorts of things in relative safety. So we found a house just outside the pretty harbour of Kassiopi on Corfu's north-eastern corner, close enough for them to get to the bars and sufficiently far away so that the same bars didn't keep us geriatrics awake.

These things are never simple. One of my eldest daughter's friends pulled out at the last minute for reasons I never fully understood, and a second came and went within three days, again without explanation. But the boyfriend arrived and stayed and was just about the only one of us who understood how to put a motor-boat into reverse (though he almost mowed down some Rothschild house-guests at Agios Stefanos). So it all worked out.

This is what helped it to work out. The villa was perfect, with sufficient space for everybody to come together and separate at will, an infinity pool offering - in estate agent parlance - great views over to Albania and a five-minute walk from the shops and restaurants. The villa's televisions and DVD player were crucial (sorry, but there it is).

The town itself is busy, bar and restaurant rich, but free of the “Vodka and Red Bull by the pint” ethos that prevails in some other Corfiot resorts. True, there are plenty of tattoos, disastrous shorts and sunburnt shoulders on display, but they belong to perfectly sweet and family-oriented Britishers. You can (and people do) overstate the divisions between the classes on Corfu.

Of course, there are the Club Rep revellers of Kavos in the far south and the well-heeled villocracy north of Corfu town, but in most of the island the categories of holidaymakers shade into each other. Even the Deripaskas are likely to find their water occasionally invaded by a boat full of Geordie teenagers on an afternoon's escape from the sand and lotion. A good job too, this mixing, allowing me to sit with my laptop plugged into the wi-fi at Don's bar, watching live football from England, next to a table full of Walsall supporters. And in the gorgeous vicinity of Palaeokastritsa, where I drove the teenagers along the excellent hill-roads, the beaches were full of Italians, which is usually a good sign.

The weather on Corfu seemed to me - scarred by the past two years in Britain - to be a miracle ordained by Saint Spiridon himself, consisting of a steady 30-32C with a nice northerly breeze. We took the 11-year-old the short hop by car to the modest hydropark at Acharavi, and - after two hours fluming in the sun - were still back well in time to do the teenagers' washing up for them.

Best of all, though, were the boat trips - those we did by ourselves and those organised by others. The teens loved driving the motor-boat, which was a great deal safer than zooming about on quad bikes. But they could also book independent journeys into Corfu town, an hour away, at one of the companies operating out of Kassiopi.

This distance was perfect, with two boats leaving Kassiopi and returning every day - a morning and afternoon boat, and an afternoon and evening one. On each you would set out alongside the private-school brigade, with tall Toby to the fore, and the northerners with pretty Shelley. There would be bouzouki music on the outward leg, with the island to your right and Albania to the left, and Seventies hits on the way back.

In Corfu town we sat drinking freduccinos at the Napoleonic Liston arcade, in front of the cricket ground, took in some shopping in the narrow streets of the old town, had sardines at the traditional Chrisomallis restaurant in Theotoki street. My classicist daughter and I then went to the archaeological museum to see the unusually modern-looking and scary Gorgon pediment that once topped the nearby Temple of Artemis.

Being such a wonderful and virtuous father, I then had a great bonding day with the oldest when we climbed the 3,000ft from the coast to the summit of Mount Pantokrator, which we reached after four hours, before limping down to meet the others in the deserted village of Old Perithia, where there is nothing except abandoned houses and - incongruously - four unabandoned and very good tavernas. There you should wash everything down with lashings of “tsin-tsin birra” (ginger beer), a relic of 19th-century British rule over the Ionian islands. You can get there more easily by car, and there is a fantastic ice-cream place where the road to Perithia joins the coastal highway.

On our last night we took the second boat into Corfu, returning after a fine supper, sailing through the balmy night. We the unyachted, boated democratically together, the Tobys and the Shelleys. The middle daughter and I sat there on the top deck, with Simon Armitage's fine dramatisation of The Odyssey playing into one ear each from a shared iPod. And we arrived in Kassiopi harbour at exactly same time as Odysseus did (or so Kassiopians say), though we were clothed and the beautiful Nausicaa wasn't waiting for us. Which was the only disappointment, really.

NEED TO KNOW

CV Travel (020-7401 1026, www.cvtravel.co.uk) offers a week's stay at Villa Aktea from £655pp in 2009, based on eight sharing and including return Gatwick flights, transfers, maid service and a welcome food hamper.

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