Villa Uranos di Gioia

The olive oil we came home with was bought fresh from the family who owned Villa Uranos, and the oregano salt was a present, made with oregano they grew. The man we booked through could not do enough for us all week, and one evening his mother made us a moussaka. They were wonderful hosts, and they are no longer the hosts. The villa has changed hands since our week there, and the La Gioia site still lists it, but it may be let differently now, and nobody can promise the moussaka.

We found it on the Peligoni Club's website, among the villas the club's guests can stay in, and booked it direct with the owners for the second week of the trip, the one we spent with the other grandparents. It stands at Korithi, in the hills at the northern tip of Zakynthos, up the coast from Agios Nikolaos. We remember it as modern and sleek, all on one storey, with black-framed glass doors that slide back onto the terrace. In one bedroom the headboard is a slab of raw-edged timber, and the sea fills the glass door beside the bed. The rest of the house is mostly a way of getting outside.

Outside, rough timber posts carry a pergola roofed in cane the length of the terrace, with a macramé swing chair hung from one beam and fat cushioned loungers on the broad steps down to the water. Then the pool, 18 metres by 4 with an infinity edge, and from it the view that is the whole point: green slopes and cypresses running down to the sea, and a line of hills on the far shore. The children swam in it every day and loved it. Behind the pool, sunflowers grow against a dry-stone wall, and the table for eating outside is a round of glass on a tree stump, under a shade sail.

There is no restaurant. The kitchen is equipped, and a private chef can be arranged to cook dinner in the villa, which gives whoever usually cooks the night off. From Agios Nikolaos a skippered speedboat goes out for half a day or a whole one, to the Blue Caves and the Shipwreck at Navagio. A trainer can come to the villa for Pilates or aqua aerobics, and the pool is long enough for the second. Zakynthos Town and the airport are both more than 20 km away and there is no shuttle, so plan on a car; the parking is free. Whoever lets it now, the pool still faces the sunrise.