As our car cruised gently along Corfu’s twisting roads, down from hilltop villages to the golden sands lining the coast, we were breaking every all-inclusive holiday stereotype going.
Forget staying barricaded behind the resort gates without seeing anything of our destination: instead, our own home for the week was so determined to encourage guests out to explore that they even lend you a free Mini Cooper to do it.
But that’s only one of the preconceived notions that Ikos resorts enjoys disproving.
Checked into the new Ikos Dassia, the first of the group’s resorts to open on a Greek island — there are also two on the Halkidiki peninsula, while Ikos Aria in Kos follows later this year — we were discovering a resort that’s family friendly but indulgent enough for adults, will tempt you not to leave but makes it easy to get out and explore, plus all-inclusive luxury that genuinely is all included.
Food? There are six a la carte restaurants, two buffets, 24-hour room service and two gelaterias, not to mention the bars with over 300 wines and a fully stocked minibar in your room.
Activities? Let’s start with 600 metres of beach, seven pools with a kids’ splashzone, plus watersports such as paddleboarding, tennis, free bikes to borrow to discover every inch of the resort’s 26 acres and that useful Mini Cooper for the day (although you will need to buy your own petrol).
Kids’ clubs for ages four to 12 are free too, plus 30 minutes beach childcare for kids over four, as well as baby paraphernalia to request. In peak season, there’s a Just4Teens club for 13+ — and fast WiFi everywhere on the resort.
If you do want more, extras include the kids’ daily football academy sessions, a crèche for four-month-olds up and spa treatments for an added fee.
But if you want a holiday without having constantly to put your hand in your pocket, I only splashed out on fuel for the Mini, two ice creams on our day out and a souvenir snow globe for my daughter, plus entry to Corfu Town’s Venetian fortress.
And with a free shuttle to the island’s capital around 30 minutes away, along with free entry to several island attractions, such as Casa Parlante in Corfu Town, Ikos Dassia had most of that covered too.
It’s all part of what Ikos Resorts call ‘Infinite Lifestyle’ — no wonder I felt so relaxed, even on those twisting mountainous roads high above the coast. And for those, like me, who’ve often written off all-inclusives as a holiday that dissuades you from seeing your destination, it’s a perfect solution.
The ‘Dine Out’ option includes the chance to eat at three local restaurants, for example: as well as supporting local businesses, you’re getting another taste of life on the island.
Sitting at the tables outside Rex restaurant in Corfu Town, we watched the streets starting to gear up for the evening — groups chatting in a little square whose souvenir shops had closed for the night, tiny churches opening their doors to allow a glimpse of the shadowy dark interiors and gleaming gold icons in flickering candlelight.
All quite different from our first trip into Corfu Town during the day, walking past the elegant balconied houses to discover both its Venetian history and enduring Jewish community.
A short stroll from the port, past pastel buildings and white-clothed café tables, stands a stark statue of four people — man, woman, child and baby. Erected in 2001, the Holocaust memorial is dedicated to the 2,000 Jews sent from the island to Auschwitz and Birkenau in 1944.
Today the community numbers around 60, down from approximately 7,000 at the end of the 19th century — a mix of Greek Romaniote Jews and the descendents of an Italian community which left Puliga in the Middle Ages, with Jews living on the island since the 12th century.
One synagogue remains on Corfu, two minutes’ from the memorial down Velissariou Street. The only one of the island’s four synagogues which still exists, the ‘Scuola Greca’ was the newest — built in 1650.
Open to visitors, there’s no tricky security to bypass here; instead a smile for my daughter as we accidentally walked into the wrong room before heading upstairs to the peaceful blue and white hall, the Ark hidden away behind white pillars with red and gold decoration.
The benches down the centre run lengthways, so none of the congregation has to turn their backs on the Ark or the Torah reader at the opposite end of the room, raised above the congregation under a gilded cupola.
These days, services are only held on holidays when a visiting Rabbi comes to the shul, and only echoes of the community remain as you walk the old Jewish quarter in the streets nearby.
A sign outside commemorates the novelist Albert Cohen, born in the area but who moved to Marseille as a child, perhaps the most famous of the island’s Jews.
The road parallel bears his name — Alvertou Koen Street — while two others remember a doctor, prominent in the community, at Lazar Shabbetai de Mordo, and the Jewish victims of Nazism on Evraion Thymaton Nazismou.
For most tourists, it’s the Venetian history which draws them to the town, especially the new and old Venetian fortresses. Ruins of old cells and kitchens, and a church disguised as a classical Greek temple remain within the walls of the latter on the waterfront.
Less visited is quirky little ‘living’ museum Casa Parlante, a house once belonging to Corfiot aristocracy and frozen in time during the 19th century. It’s peopled with waxworks, whose hands constantly reach for a teacup or sit frozen by a piano, and guides to talk you through the realities of life at the time — and those of the servants — including family politics.
Further down the coast lies the Achilleon, the summer palace of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria and one of the stops on our wishlist as we sped around Corfu in that gleaming blue Mini, along with the flamingos which live by Lake Korission in the south west.
Fans of The Durrells could also head to Danilia village where some of the show is shot, as well as into the wilder north.
After losing ourselves in the twisting roads on the way to Pelakas on the west coast, we settled for a taste of the beach — albeit one which had appeared in a Bond film.
Issos beach near Agios Georgios south (there are two Agios Georgios on the island and an Agios Gordios for good measure) turns up in For Your Eyes Only — and if my six-year-old had no interest in Roger Moore, she was happy to scramble up and down the sand dunes at one end, behind which lies the lake and those flamingos.
Then only one choice remained. Which of Ikos Dassia’s eight restaurants would we be heading to for dinner? Sipping a glass of wine in the aptly named Sea bar overlooking the Aegean, we faced the tough decision between beachfront Greek or Corfiot cuisine, Italian, Provencal, Asian or the themed buffet.
I reflected that some of the preconceptions about all-inclusive holidays are — happily — still true.
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