Paradise Beach on Corfu’s northwestern coast sits at the end of a boat ride through sea caves, its white cliffs rising above water so bright it barely looks real. For anyone who has ever wondered which corner of the Mediterranean deserves the most attention, travel writer and creator Malini Angelica has spent years answering that question firsthand, swimming from rocks, hiking to hidden coves, and seeking out the towns that the tour buses skip. Her personal top 10 pulls from Italy, France, the Balkans, the Levant, and the Greek islands, and the full list lands somewhere between a road map and a love letter.
Starting from the bottom and building toward the Ionian
The Amalfi Coast opens the countdown at number ten, and Angelica is quick to steer readers past the famous crowds. She found the lesser-known coastal town she calls Chitaara to carry the same dramatic clifftop backdrop as Positano, just without the hordes. Nearby, a path through fragrant lemon terraces connects the towns of Mori and Minori, where local farms offer tastings of fresh limoncello. The mountaintop town of Agerila, high above the coast, delivers some of the most sweeping views on the entire stretch.
Malta arrives at nine, and it exceeded her expectations entirely. The capital Valletta earns her vote as one of the most picturesque capitals in the Mediterranean, while the Blue Grotto off the main island shifts through entirely different shades of blue depending on the time of day. The sister island of Gozo offers dramatic cliffs and a rock arch formation alongside the Blue Hole, the country’s most celebrated dive site. Nearby Comino’s Blue Lagoon she describes as looking like a giant swimming pool, and she calls it one of the best places she has swum across all her Mediterranean travels.
Montenegro lands at eight and was the trip’s biggest surprise. The UNESCO-listed Bay of Kotor blends deep fjords with medieval walled towns, and the views from the fortress above the bay reveal limestone mountains plunging straight into the water. King’s Beach, an emerald cove backed by lush vegetation, and the adjacent Queen’s Beach were her two favorite swimming spots in the entire country.
Croatia at seven centers on its islands. Hvar mixes medieval old town architecture, a harbor fortress, and boat trips to the Pakleni Islands, where a family-run seafood restaurant on a tiny island surrounded by olive trees serves lunch beside some of the clearest water on the Dalmatian coast. Dubrovnik rounds it out, its fortress walls stretching almost 2 km around the old town and offering unbroken views of the Adriatic.
Sicily appears at six and again later as the overall personal favourite. Its capital Palermo blends Norman and Arab architecture, and its open-air markets are the best entry point into authentic Sicilian street food. The Valley of the Temples at Agrigento holds some of the best-preserved Greek ruins in Italy. The Aegadian Islands off the western coast carry a centuries-old tuna fishing tradition alongside whitewashed villages and clear turquoise water, while the Zingaro Nature Reserve rewards hikers with a 7 km coastal trail through dramatic cliffs and hidden pebbly coves.
Lebanon at five is the list’s most unexpected entry. Angelica visited in October 2022. The coastal towns of Byblos and Batroun hold Phoenician harbors and hilltop castles overlooking the sea. Inland, the Roman ruins of Baalbek are, in her words, on an entirely different scale, with temples among the most impressive ancient sites she has encountered anywhere. A vast underground grotto of towering rock formations and crystal clear water rounds out the country’s highlights.
The places that blew her away most recently
The Albanian Riviera sits at four, and she was there while recording this very guide. Rugged mountains, cliffs, and water she describes as among the clearest and most intensely blue she has seen anywhere in the Mediterranean back a coastline full of quiet coves. The medieval town of Berat, with its white Ottoman houses and the River Osum, adds deep history to the coastal drama.
The Italian Riviera, also known as the Cinque Terre, claims the third spot. Five colorful villages cling to the hillsides above the sea, connected by walking trails and vineyards. Swimming spots where visitors can dive directly from the rocks beneath houses stacked in pastel colors made it especially memorable. Portofino, a short distance along the coast, wraps its own pastel buildings around a small bay framed by pine trees and grand hilltop villas.
Marseille takes second place. Angelica explored the old port and its waterfront cafes before following the coast to find rock ledges to swim from. The highlight was Les Calanques, a series of steep rocky inlets carved into the limestone hills on both sides of the city. She put it simply after reaching the water at the end of a long hike through pine-covered hills: ‘swimming here felt completely dreamlike.’
Corfu takes the top spot. Its UNESCO-listed old town carries centuries of Venetian, French, and British influence, and the island’s interior is thick with ancient olive groves and cypress trees, which makes it feel unlike any other Greek island she has visited. The boat trip from Paleokastritsa through sea caves and past cliffs that can only be reached by water is where the island’s coastline fully reveals itself.
The beach that stayed with her after the boat turned back
Paradise Beach on Corfu’s northwestern coast: white cliffs, bright turquoise water, and a completely unspoiled setting accessible only by sea.
When pressed to name a single destination she would return to over and over, Angelica chose Sicily, reasoning that its sheer size means a single trip can never cover all of it. Corfu is the number one on this list, but Sicily, she says, is the one she keeps going back to.
