Portokalia Villa

This villa is called Portokalia Villa, one of the Orchid villas in Kalami, near Loustri, Curfu, Greece. It's right uphill from Agni Bay.
We recommend using a navigation device when you hire a car to get here. We arrived at night and it's tricky to find your way from Kerkyra airport to the main road in the dark. We were picked up from the main road near the villa by the key holder. That's no luxury either, you'll not find it, even with google maps on your iPhone.
Also, the roads can be very steep, in particular those near the villa are hair raising for Dutch standards.
The villa has a large, two-level terrace with a private pool. We booked for two and spend most our time reading in the shadow on the terrace. The Kalami village is about a kilometer away and close enough to walk. We bought some groceries in the villa, it has two surprisingly complete supermarkets with all the stuff that the English are used to. Not to mention the best baklava we ever tasted!
I must say there were almost exclusively English tourists. We went for dinner every night in one of the 4 restaurants in Kalami or at . The famous White House is a restaurant too, but we were recommended against it from several sources so we didn't try it.
We ate at Thomas Place once, but it was very loud, both the public as the music, also we had to wait forever for the bill, despite several hints. We liked a much more peaceful dinner at the Agni bay and Kalami Beach restaurants best.
We recommend hiring a small car with airconditioning if you want to explore the island. We went to Paleokastritsa, on the other side of the island, which is supposed to be 'the' most beautiful bay, but to be honest we think it's not that much different from other bays.
Another way of exploring the island is hiring a boat. It's cheap and you don't need a licence for most boats. We went to Corfu city / Kerkyra one evening by ferry and it wasn't even cold on the way back in the dark.
Corfu city, or Kerkyra as the Greeks call it, is very touristic and you find yourself walking the centre of the city, wondering why there are streets full of tourist junk. I mean: who needs a whole street of liquor shops that sell mostly the local yellow Kum Quat alcohol?
Overall, prices for dinner were not very different from those in the Netherlands. We spend between €35 and €50, depending on our choice of food, restaurant, drinks, deserts, etc. Whenever possible, eat where the local eat, it's usually good.
I recommend trying the local oven dishes like stifado (beef and young onions cooked in red wine and served with rice and potatoes) or moussaka, they are the best, but my wife also enjoyed the fresh fish.
The villa is nice and clean. We didn't use the television/satellite. The 'iPod receiver' in the living room didn't work with my 3GS iPhone. The WiFi wireless internet worked fine though. The kitchen has plates and cutlery, but no pepper and salt, dish brush or powder for the dish washer. We think at these prices (we paid € 1850 for a week, 2 persons, it can have 6 but we couldn't find a smaller villa) it would be reasonable to include those. Who packs pepper and salt on a holiday? Also not logical to buy them for just lunch for a week.
There are 3 bedrooms upstairs, but only one bed is really a single, 2-person bed. The bathrooms are small and the water pressure and temperature for warm water is kind of unstable. Also, you can't throw toilet paper in the toilet, as in most Greece toilets, but more importantly: there is airconditioning in every room. It's very quiet and mosquitos don't like it.
At first we didn't think the mosquitoes were a problem, but after a few days they are bloody annoying. Already in the afternoon they try to suck your blood and since they make no noise and you don't feel them landing on your skin, mosquito bites are impossible to avoid, unless you tuck your pants in your socks and wear a longsleeve.. One assured us there was a musquito net before we booked, but it's completely useless because it's two loose ends. Our advise is to keep windows and doors closed, specially after the cleaners have opened them.
Although there are several orchid villas next to each other, and we could hear our English neighbours on their terrace, we still enjoyed enough privacy. You can't be seen skinny dipping.
Only flaw (besides the mosquitos) was the noise of the construction work some 50 meters down the road from 11 to 15 hours, even during the weekend.
The beach is right down the mountain, about a 5 minutes walk and it's nice clear water, but don't expect a private beach with white sand. It's rocky and usually you're not alone. Watch out for the pointy, poisonous shells: were shoes in the water.
We had a bearable ±37 degrees Celsius in June, but it can be a lot warmer. Don't drink tap water, and dis the icecubes you get in your drinks in restaurants. Only eat packed ice cream. Drink lots of mineral water, you can buy it everywhere cheap per 5 liter jerrycan.
All in all, we had a very nice week over here.