Two shores, one strait.

The Albanian Riviera runs for roughly a hundred kilometres between the Llogara Pass and the Greek border — a sequence of white-pebble bays, hillside villages and citrus terraces facing due west into the Ionian. For half a century it was sealed off from the world; today it is the last stretch of Mediterranean coastline where a private villa can still sit above an uncrowded beach.

The harbour town of the Riviera — where the yachts leave and Corfu is the view

Four islets, water the colour of the Maldives, and the Riviera's most wanted villas

The Riviera's beach club capital — white pebbles, mountain backdrop, Cycladic energy

The Riviera's table — a Greek-speaking harbour town where the fish comes off the boat

Where the Riviera begins — a wide, quiet strand and the coast's flagship new residences

The Riviera at its quietest — a stone village above, a slow beach below, a castle bay next door

Where two seas meet — the bay city at the head of the Riviera road

Corfu has been receiving discerning visitors for four hundred years. The Venetians left it a capital of arcades and twin fortresses, the British left cricket and ginger beer on the Liston, and the Durrells left the northeast coast a literary reputation it has never shaken. Of all the Greek islands, this is the one that wears sophistication most naturally.

Corfu's villa heartland — Kalami, Agni, Nissaki and the bays the Durrells made famous

A Venetian capital in the Greek islands — arcades, fortresses and the corridor's grand harbour

Six coves, a monastery on the headland and the clearest water on Corfu's west coast