To those of you who visualize a Greece of sun-baked rock dotted with dazzling whitewashed houses, the Ionian comes as a gentle surprise. This is not the Greece of the popular travel brochure but a shaded green country, sheltering red tiled Latin houses, an eccentric collection of Italian and French architecture and English tastes (in Corfu the locals play cricket and you can buy currant buns and ginger beer) welded together into a whole that is indubitably Greek.

Ever-green cypress, pine, elm, green fields, flowers even in height of summer, and everywhere the dull dark sheen of the olive, characterize the lower land while higher up the slopes are covered in pine and the tenacious Mediterranean maquis. If the wind is in the right direction you can smell the pungent herby aroma a mile out to sea. The green luxuriance of the islands is in direct contrast to the high eroded mountains of Albania and mainland Greece that form the eastern boundary to the Ionian.

Starting points are Corfu (Gouvia marina) and Lefkas. Here you will find a luscious, green landscape with calm waters and a total coastline of thousands of miles. You will find the influences of foreign cultures (British, Italian) but the area is still indisputably Greek.

The Ionian Islands located on the western side of mainland Greece, are seven main islands that are different from other islands by their fertile land (blanketed with olive groves sustained by the winter rains) and clear blue waters. The mixture of different civilizations and cultures is harmoniously welded together into one piece that is undoubtedly Greek, in a complex of islands where the most beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean can be explored.