Villa de Loulia

A warmly-stylish manor house with pool and walled garden in a tiny village on the NW coast of Corfu

A tiny untouched village, an 18th-century manor house, a shimmering pool in a courtyard garden, a beach for staggering sunsets. Drive up from Corfu town, leave the main road at Sidari and potter along tiny lanes through staggeringly beautiful country and ancient villages. While centuries may pass, not much changes here: cockerels crow, olive groves shade the fields, old ladies watch life pass by from their door. In Peroulades you'll find the smartest house in the northwest. It dates to 1800 and has been in the same family ever since. But there's nothing stuffy about it. The the ochre-red walls have been repainted and the nine bedrooms have been redesigned with spare elegance and pastel shades.

Swing in through the gates and find simplicity and style entwined in happy matrimony. Best of all is the pool, were you can lie on smart loungers and look up at old village houses. A formal garden encircles you: trim lawns, bulging orange trees, lavender-scented air and a frog who sings at night.

Highs

• The pool (7x14m) in the gorgeous garden
• Lovely rooms that mix old architecture with a warm, contemporary design
• The village itself: simple, authentic, undisturbed
• Pretty stroll though village and country to sandy beach less than a kilometre from the front door

Lows

• Narrow lanes in the village mean the pool and garden are overlooked by two houses (though we thought this was charming)
• Sidari, a tacky English resort is three kilometres up the coast – a distant memory by the time you get to Peroulades
• The views are stunning but the beach is quite narrow and only accessible by long precipitous steps so unsuitable for small children