hips don't lie: Corfu family holiday: Classical ruins, a rowdy cockerel and a different bay every day in cracking Corfu

By
Matt Curtis

PUBLISHED:

12:28 EST, 22 January 2013

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UPDATED:

12:28 EST, 22 January 2013

As Greek restaurant views go, this is one of the more unusual. Normally, you might expect a pretty local church, a temple, a town square – or, if you’re unlucky, a car park filled with scooters.

In Taverna Agni, on Corfu’s stylish north-east coast, I’m gazing at a panorama of Albania. Not so long ago, the country was Europe’s North Korea, its borders studded with 750,000 concrete gun emplacements. Twenty years ago, tourists might not have been sitting so comfortably at these tables.

These days, Albania is opening its doors to the world and its Classical ruins are said to be among the Mediterranean’s most unspoilt. Even today, there is something intriguing and unsettling about the nation across the water.

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Serene seascapes: The quiet island of Corfu is where Odysseus was washed ashore

As we bask in blazing, Mediterranean sunshine, tar-black thunder clouds bubble endlessly over Albania’s rugged mountains, which, unlike Corfu’s lush green hills, are as stubbled as Russell Crowe’s chin.

But don’t let that put you off – a day trip to the Albanian port of Saranda and the nearby ancient Greek and Roman remains at Butrint, is a must for the curious.

On Corfu, there is plenty more on the menu than ouzo and octopus. Even getting to our villa is an adventure. The beautiful little roads above the coastal village of Nissaki are so precipitous that parking in the drive requires two three-point turns and at least as many prayers.

But it’s worth it: there’s an infinity pool, dreamy terrace, barbecue and a cleaner so patient, benevolent and fastidious she is surely in line for a sainthood. It’s pretty much perfect – except, that is, for the cockerel.

When Odysseus was washed ashore on the beaches of Corfu in The Odyssey, he was pleasantly awoken by the rippling laughter of a beautiful princess washing in a nearby stream. We, on the other had, are rudely woken each morning by a noisy Greek Chanticleer.

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Border hopping: The ancient Greek amphitheatre at Butrint in Albania is well worth a visit

By the end of the week, even our baby is
cock-a-doodle-dooing. In retrospect the rooster did us a favour. Corfu
is at its most beautiful in the honeyed early morning light – nowhere
more so than in the string of harbours running north from Nissaki.

Surrounded by horseshoes of tree-sprinkled cliffs, with flotillas of painted ships bobbing in turquoise waters, these hideaway bays are a holiday brochure cliche. While Corfu has more than its fair share of sprawling tourist industry carbuncles – hardly surprising for an island that attracts a million visitors a year – its magic is still preserved along the north-east coast.

Nissaki’s harbour is little more than a brace of tavernas and a patch of shingle barely bigger than a squash court. Further north, Agni has a crescent- shaped beach and top-notch tavernas, some of which will ferry you to and fro by speedboat.

Heading on, larger Kalami is most famous for The White House – now a restaurant – where Lawrence Durrell wrote Prospero’s Cell in 1939, while next-door Kouloura, which has a crescent of cypresses rather than a beach, is the perfect backdrop for a heavenly lunch.

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Bountiful bay: What Kouloura lacks in a beach it makes up for with a picturesque line of cypress trees

Add scenic Agios Stefanos, Kaminaki and Kassiopi to your list and you’ve got a bay for each day of the week. But don’t miss the mountains. north-eastern Corfu is dominated by the 3,000ft peak of Pantokrator, and on its northern flank is the ‘deserted’ village of Perithia.

It’s rather less ‘deserted’ than the local tourist bumpf would have you believe – there are at least four thriving tavernas – but the streets wind past lines of empty, tumbledown stone homes buzzing with butterflies and garlanded with creeping wild flowers.

And a walk in the hills followed by a long lunch – make sure you try the rich local honey – is a wonderful antidote to a surfeit of seaside. Odysseus got to go home to the island of Ithaca after his visit to Corfu.

If only we had such luck. We’re bound for London, where the water’s darker, the light’s duller, the roads are straighter – and, worst of all, there are no views of Albania.

Travel Facts

CV Travel (020 7401 1026, www.cvtravel.co.uk) offers a week’s stay at Villa Lithos from £1,665 for up to six sharing, including car hire, maid service and a food hamper. An accommodation and flight package starts at £597pp.