Paleokastritsa

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

Paleokastritsa is Corfu's western set piece: a sequence of six coves folded into forested headlands, with a working Byzantine monastery — founded in the thirteenth century — holding the highest point above the bays. The water here is the island's coldest and clearest, fed by deep open sea, and the swimming is the kind people cross the island for.

The topography does the curating. Agios Spyridon and the central beaches carry the summer crowds; La Grotta's cliff-bar cove absorbs the divers; and small strands like Ampelaki and Alipa reward the short scramble or the two-minute boat hop. Wooden taxi boats shuttle from the main beach to the sea caves and the blue-water grottoes beneath the cliffs — the essential Paleokastritsa hour.

Above it all, the coast road climbs to Lakones village and its balcony cafés, and on to the Angelokastro fortress, whose ramparts survey the entire west coast. Villas here hang in the amphitheatre hills with sunset views the northeast coast cannot offer — the west side of the island is where Corfu faces the open Ionian.

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