Ionian Islands travel guide: which island to choose and when to go

Corfu is the best known and most populated: a UNESCO-listed Venetian old town, a west coast cut around Paleokastritsa, more than a million olive trees planted under the Venetians. It is also the best served, with seasonal direct flights from Paris. Allow three to five days for the island alone. It works as a destination in its own right: see our dedicated guide to Corfu for itineraries and choosing an area. From the south of the island, a day trip reaches Paxos and Antipaxos, about an hour's crossing, leaving early from Kavos or Kerkyra.

Lefkada is the only Ionian island you reach by car, over a swing bridge from the coast of Acarnania: no ferry or flight to an island needed. Its west coast lines up the most photographed beaches of the archipelago, Porto Katsiki and Egremni, below white cliffs, with sand that turns the water turquoise. The more sheltered east is a sailing anchorage around Nydri. The mountainous interior hides villages such as Karya, known for its embroidery, and waterfalls near Nydri. Three days is enough, with Preveza airport 20 minutes away.

Kefalonia is vast and mountainous, dominated by Mount Ainos at 1,628 m and its forest of endemic black fir, the archipelago's only national park. Three bases: Argostoli for the Melissani and Drogarati caves and turtles seen from the quay, the north for Assos and its fortified peninsula and for Fiskardo spared by the 1953 earthquake, Sami for Antisamos beach and the ferry to Ithaca. The drive down to Myrtos beach, between two cliffs, is the postcard image of Greece. The mountain roads are narrow and winding: allow more time than the map suggests, often double between Argostoli and Fiskardo. Five days.

Ithaca, the island of Odysseus, is tiny and barely developed: a harbour at the head of a deep bay, Vathy, the hillside village of Kioni, the Cave of the Nymphs and one main road. You do it by scooter in two days. Paxos, smaller still, is covered in olive trees; its three harbours, Gaios, Lakka and Loggos, each sit in a cove, and Antipaxos opposite has Caribbean-grade water. Neither has an airport: you arrive by ferry from Corfu, Lefkada or the mainland, one to two rotations a day off season.

Zakynthos is the most contrasting island: to the north-west, Shipwreck Beach ringed by cliffs and the blue caves of Cape Skinari, to the south Laganas bay, the main loggerhead turtle nesting site in the Mediterranean, protected as a marine park. The town, destroyed by the 1953 earthquake, was rebuilt to the original Venetian plans. Laganas is also the nightlife heart of the archipelago: choose your base accordingly, as the north around Volimes stays quiet. Nesting beaches close at night from May to October and approaching the nests is banned. Three to four days.

Kythira belongs to the Ionian Islands only administratively: it sits south of the Peloponnese, on the hinge between the Aegean and the Ionian Sea, and is reached by ferry from Neapoli or by a small plane from Athens. The island is arid, almost Cycladic, with a Venetian chora, gorges, the Fonissa waterfall and hard-to-reach beaches. It is a destination for quiet, with no mass tourism, where you come to walk and do nothing. The chora is topped by a Venetian kastro. Allow at least four days given the logistics.