Corfu

Corfu (Κerkyra in Greek) is a Garden of Eden cast up in the northwest corner of Greece, a sweet mockery of the rugged grey mountains of Albania lying offshore.

Its Venetian city-capital is one of the loveliest towns in Greece; the beaches that have managed to escape the worst of the cement mixers are gorgeous; the gentler mountain slopes, sprinkled with villas and farms, are outlandishly picturesque, strewn with wild flowers (43 kinds of orchids), scented with the blossoms of lemons and kumquats, and silvery with forests of ancient olives.

Corfu’s reputation as a distant paradise began with Homer, who called it Scheria, the happy isle of the Phaeacians, where the shipwrecked Odysseus was found washed up on a golden beach by the lovely Nausicaä. Shakespeare had it in mind when creating the magical isle of The Tempest. He was followed by Edward Lear and brothers Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, whose writings carved a special niche for Corfu in the British heart.