A Corfu itinerary: the town and one coast

That single fact decides your base, your beach days and how much driving the week contains.

Four to five days is the sweet spot: the Old Town, one full coast and a boat or inland day. Two or three days covers the town plus a nearby beach at a rush. A week adds the second coast and a Paxos day trip without hurrying anything.

Day one: the Old Town, and stay past sunset

Corfu Town is a UNESCO-listed Venetian old town and it is the reason to come here rather than to a greener, quieter Ionian island. It also empties in the evening when the day-trippers and cruise passengers leave, which makes the evening the better half of the day.

Do it first. It is the part of Corfu that does not depend on weather, and it sets the frame for everything else.

Day two and three: pick one coast and stay on it

The mistake on Corfu is treating the island as small enough to bounce between coasts. It is not - the crossing is a real drive, and doing it daily turns a holiday into a commute.

• The east is the sheltered side: calm channel water, and the practical choice with children or without a car.
• The west is cliffs, coves and sunsets, and it needs a car. The water is cooler and more open.

Choose by what you want the beach days to feel like, not by which photograph you saw. The beaches explain the difference and where to stay in Corfu maps the bases onto it.

Day four: a boat, or inland

The boat is Paxos, an hour away and a genuinely different pace - the day trip a week on Corfu is built around. Day trips from Corfu covers it along with the crossing to Albania.

Inland is the other option and the one almost nobody takes: the mountainous north around Pantokrator, and the villages that have nothing to do with the resorts. On a five-day trip you can have both.

Where the fifth day goes

To the second coast, briefly - one full day, not a daily commute. That is the honest use of a fifth day, and it is why the sweet spot is five rather than four.

One corner to decide about deliberately

Kavos, at the far southern tip, is a British 18-25 party strip: cheap, loud in season and quiet by day. It is a base you choose on purpose because the strip is the trip. If it is not your trip, the only thing you need to do is not book near it by accident.

Getting here, which is not a Piraeus route

Corfu is Ionian, so the sea route is a mainland one: a drive or bus to Igoumenitsa and then a crossing that runs year-round. Flying is about an hour from Athens. Athens to Corfu has both.

Our Corfu guide has the rest, and things to do in Corfu covers the sights.