Postcard from a Corfiot Summer

INSPIRATION | CABANA TRAVEL | WORLD OF CABANA

Twelve years after first discovering Corfu’s quieter, village-rooted rhythms, Camilla Frances returns to the Ionian island and finds heritage, hospitality and timeless landscapes still endure. At Corfu Imperial, the Daskalantonakis family’s decades-long devotion to Greek hospitality is felt in every detail, while the island's rustic villages remain unchanged. From olive-groves and seaside dining spots to hidden coves and the golden-hued Venetian Old Town, Corfu rewards looking beyond the familiar.

BY CAMILLA FRANCES | CABANA TRAVEL | 26 SEPTEMBER 2026

In the summer of 2012, while London was gripped by Olympic fever, I left the city for the Greek island of Corfu, travelling as part of a small documentary film crew. For six weeks we shadowed locals and expats in and around the villages of Nymfes and Platonas, documenting their lives and histories, and walking in their footsteps for a short but precious time.

We filmed solitary sunrise fishing trips with men trying to make sense of their past, walked through olive groves with families building businesses, trekked through hilltops to find hidden beaches and enjoyed long, languid meals on the gentle shores of Agios San Stefanos, a tiny lesser-known strip of land with a small pebble beach and waterside tables. We drove through mountain trails, taking in spectacular sunsets and views over to Albania, and spent our days filming in allotments, tavernas, diminutive village houses and summer festivals.

As someone who had consigned Corfu to the too-popular-with-fellow-Brits-to-be-exciting box, I was entirely chastened. While known for attracting British holiday makers (to well-heeled Kassiopi in the north and all-you-can-drink Kavos in the south), this is far from the full picture. Over those six weeks, I fell for Corfu, began to understand its rhythms and recognized it as distinct from the rest of Greece. I hadn’t returned in over 10 years, preoccupied with career building and raising children, but an inexorable pull remained.

Corfu Imperial, a Grecotel property on the Kommeno Peninsula © Reckoner. 

I answered it, finally, following an invitation from the family-owned Greek hotel group, Grecotel, whose flagship property, Corfu Imperial, enjoys one of the most stunning locations on the island, sitting on the Kommeno Peninsula with 360-degree views of the Ionian. On a baking morning in early summer, we turned off the island’s Dassia road and began to descend through the olive groves of Kommeno. As cypress trees narrowed and the sea flashed silver-blue between their branches, the peninsula came into view: stone colonnades, terracotta rooftops, and a dark jade lawn rolling down to the sea.

It would be easy to mistake Corfu Imperial for another grand resort on a beautiful coastline, but this is a family's life and legacy, built stone by stone on the most coveted spit of land in the Ionian. The story begins on the other side of Greece when, in the mid-70s, two brothers from Crete — olive oil traders, Nikos and Takis Daskalantonakis — decided, against most sensible advice, to enter the hotel business. It was 1974, Greek tourism was booming, and Nikos chose his own island for his first hotel. There was no established hospitality pedigree, nor inherited fortune, only a deeply Cretan instinct for what it means to receive a guest.

From that single hotel in Rethymno grew Grecotel, formalised in 1981 as a partnership between the Daskalantonakis family and Germany's TUI, and it was this young, ambitious company that set its sights on Corfu's Kommeno Peninsula, acquiring what would become Corfu Imperial, one of the finest addresses on the island. Nearly 50 years on, Grecotel has grown into Greece's largest hospitality group, yet remains a proudly family affair, now guided by the second and third generations, still answering to the same instinct.

All images: Corfu Imperial, a Grecotel property on the Kommeno Peninsula © Reckoner.

“For half a century, Grecotel has become synonymous with Greece, belonging firmly in the tradition of hoteliers whose devotion, love of heritage and humble daring shaped the landscape and imagination of Greek tourism,” says CEO Mari Daskalantonaki, representing the second generation. Its foundations center on a “profound sense of responsibility: of creating destinations, of creating feelings, of leaving lasting impressions of Greece,” she continues. Her daughter, Odyssia Sifounaki Daskalantonaki, adds: “Growing up, I observed the unmatched creativity and uniqueness of Grecotel’s brand: how everything is shaped by the Group itself, permeating to the audience its honest, familial culture”. 

No island in Greece has been quite so fought over, nor quite so loved, as Corfu. Long before hotels, Homer wrote about it: the Odyssey places Odysseus washing ashore here, in what may be literature's first travel story. Whether or not the myth maps precisely, the island has spent the two and a half millennia since behaving like somewhere worth shipwrecking on. Its geography made that inevitable, the last stepping stone between Italy and the mainland, which meant that whoever held it controlled a great deal more than the island itself. The Venetians understood this and held on for four centuries, their fortresses still bookending Corfu Town today. After the Venetians came the French, briefly, and then the British, who governed for half a century before handing Corfu over to Greece in 1864.

Few places in Greece wear quite so many empires so lightly, or so visibly, and this accumulated glamour drew Europe's aristocracy long before package tourism existed. None fell harder than Empress Elisabeth of Austria, "Sisi," who arrived in mourning after the death of her son and built, at Gastouri, a palace to the memory of Achilles. The Achilleion, completed in 1891, still stands above the coast a short distance from where Corfu Imperial's own peninsula begins: two monuments, built decades apart, on the same belief in this island.

This is the past guests step into at Corfu Imperial, whether they know it or not: a working seam of pan-European history, on an island that has never stopped being written about or fallen in love with. That inheritance was part of our stay, I came to realise, along with the story of the Daskalantonakis family whose stewardship you feel immediately. Every element of the experience makes it clear that there is a proud and personally committed family at the helm of this property, with a reputation to protect and cherish. The superlative staff – many deserve mentions, most notably Petros and Effie – are testament to this.

It is also evident in the way the property, while undeniably luxurious, stops short of excess. Nothing feels corporate, sterile or transactional (my usual complaints about large resort-style hotels). There are no glass towers or spectacles here, just local stone, marble, olive wood, and the bones of the land. This is no doubt why the architects and contractors, on the family’s request, built a restaurant, Aristos, around a huge olive tree whose trunk extends to the floor below. Why remove a beautiful tree simply because its presence was inconvenient? Now, it is a feature of the hotel's village-like center, around which all five restaurants are clustered. It's a glorious space where children scatter happily and make new friends between courses before being ushered, by unfailingly good-natured staff, to the open-air cliffside cinema.

Twenty-five acres is a great deal of peninsula to give over to guests, and Corfu Imperial does not waste an inch. Spread across three distinct buildings and scattered further still into pine groves and olive terraces, the property offers close to 18 different ways to sleep — from sea-view rooms in soft ivory, to bungalows tucked into fragrant pine and villas with their own pools that hang over the water. Families gravitate to Il Boschetto, a quieter enclave of suites, while couples tend to chase the overwater decks, where breakfast can be floated to you across your own private pool. A new collection of villas gives a more private, residential dimension, with generous spaces designed for multigenerational families. Among the latest additions are beachfront villas with private pools and larger residences with multiple bedrooms.

Danili Village, a 1930s-inspired Corfiot hamlet owned by Grecotel © Reckoner.

Meanwhile dining is not an afterthought bolted onto a beach, but a culinary itinerary in itself. At Aristos, plates are built around the Ionian's own catch, and the island's greener, gentler olive oil, while meals at Yali – our unanimous favorite – are barefoot, with incredible seafood and tables close enough to the shoreline that the sea reaches your toes. Barbeques on the beach and in-villa dining from Michelin-starred Merlin make for a thoroughly spoiling meal. 

Beyond the grounds, the concierge team is a small-but-mighty conspiracy of local knowledge. A private yacht can be arranged for the short, cinematic run into Corfu Town, docking you within reach of cobbled lanes, boutique shopping and the Old Town's fortress walls. For golf lovers, a course sits a short drive away, and for the culturally curious, a heritage walk or food tour goes deeper into Corfiot life, while a visit to the nearby village of Danili offers a theatrical detour into the island's past, plazas and taverna included.

Guests can visit Danili, a 1930s-inspired hamlet that once became the set for the 2016 TV drama, The Durrells, which Grecotel bought and still tends to, for a range of experiences. We opted for breakfast and were treated to an outstanding Corfiot spread, served under olive trees and preceded by a tour of the village’s traditional bakery where we watched sourdough and Greek pastries being crafted, followed by a hands-on lesson in grinding rich Greek coffee and squeezing the freshest juice from local oranges.

We still had time to wander around the village’s museum of Greek history, marvelling at traditional Corfiot clothes, fabrics and curious historic objects, all beautifully preserved and displayed in a most photogenic house. Other days were filled with high-octane water sports and an all-day boat trip to nearby Paxos, via tiny Antipaxos, for that most Greek of pleasures: cove swimming followed by souvlaki in a local taverna.

Our last day was spent in a different Corfiot village. We drove to Nymfes, in search of two characters from the documentary filmed 12 years prior. Would they still be there? Would they remember? Would they be happy to revisit the past? We traced our old route, memories clicking back into gear as familiar sites appeared: a still-derelict house, a village piazza, a ramshackle row of bougainvillea-covered cottages.

We walked towards the village, intending to stop at the local store – still run by amiable local businessman, Manos, and still the center of village life. As we neared the store, a familiar silhouette came into view. There was Tony, one of the central characters, drinking a beer and chatting to Manos in a stance that suggested not a day had passed. The recognition and warmth was immediate, and we were soon being ushered through the village to connect with the second character, Val, an artist whose tiny-but-beautiful courtyard garden has always been a great source inspiration for me. Once more, the warmth and recognition was instant and within minutes we were drinking coffee – plates of just-made cheesecake resting on our knees – talking about the film and the children we’d produced in the interim.

For a Londoner used to a bewildering rotation of restaurants, pop-ups and new openings in any given month, there was something deeply moving about witnessing how little life had changed, materially at least, over 12 years in Corfu. And despite the renovated villas and state-of-the-art spa, there is a similar feeling at Corfu Imperial, a sense that time is holding you, protecting you from all the newness back home and allowing you to indulge in a fantasy, however brief, that this new, simpler, life could be yours.

So, book the newest villa with the seaview pool and the water lapping at your terrace, but know that the real luxury at Corfu Imperial is not the room or the view; it’s the people who allow you to experience them in extraordinary comfort, and the family standing behind them.