Zakynthos Town, the poets' capital

The Venetians, who ruled the island from 1484 to 1797, called it Fiore di Levante, the flower of the East, and its town grew into one of the richest in the Ionian, a place of merchants, nobles, churches and painters. Under the British protectorate from 1815 to 1864 it kept that style. The poets of the island, Dionysios Solomos, Andreas Kalvos and the Italian Ugo Foscolo, who was born here in 1778, came from this world of salons and bell towers.

On 12 August 1953 a strong earthquake struck the Ionian Islands, and fire swept through the town. Almost every building fell or burned. The town you see today was rebuilt in the following years, in a style that remembers the old one: long arcades along the main street, squares open to the sea, and churches with Venetian bell towers. The church of Saint Dionysios at the south end of the harbour, which holds the relics of the island's patron saint, is famous for having come through the disaster.

Solomos Square, at the north end of the harbour, is the town's grand space. The poet's statue stands among palms, with the Byzantine Museum on one side and the small church of Agios Nikolaos tou Molou on the water. A few steps away, St Mark's Square holds the Museum of Solomos and Eminent Zakynthians, where Solomos and Kalvos lie in a marble mausoleum. Solomos wrote the Hymn to Liberty in 1823, and its first stanzas became the Greek national anthem.

The island also remembers a quieter act of courage. In 1943 the German occupiers asked for a list of the Jews of Zakynthos. The mayor, Loukas Karrer, and Bishop Chrysostomos are said to have handed over a list with only their own two names on it. According to many accounts all 275 Jews of the island survived the war. A memorial stands on the site of the old synagogue in the town.

Above the town, the hill of Bochali has a small square of cafes, the walls of the Venetian castle and the view that everyone climbs for: the town, the harbour and the whole bay, with the Peloponnese across the water. Go up at sunset, then come back down to the waterfront, the Strada Marina, for dinner as the ferries come in from Kyllini.