Aegina, it seems, is one of the holiday world's best kept secrets.

This enchanting Greek isle is just a 20-mile hop from Athens across the Aegean sea.

But we hadn't even heard of it until we booked a fortnight there last summer having been smitten by Greece two years earlier in Rhodes.

All our efforts to discover more about Aegina were in vain. None of our friends or colleagues had been and guide books gave only fleeting references.

We - my wife Jackie and daughter Charlotte, 12 - imagined it must be deserted and that we were in for a sun-soaked but boring break. We were wrong.

Aegina - pronounced egg-inner, to our surprise - is a cosmopolitan island, popular with Greeks escaping stifling Athens for weekend breaks and with a small band of Brits and Scandinavians who can't resist returning time and again. Almost everyone we spoke to had been several times; I feel we will follow in their footsteps.

Aegina is among a collection of islands - Agistri, Poros and Hydra - which are perfect for island-hopping, linked by ferries and high-speed Sea Dolphin hydrofoils.

Just 30 minutes from the port of Piraeus, Aegina attracts a mixed crowd - couples of all ages and families.

We stayed at Aghia Marina, once a small fishing village now transformed into a bustling resort with scores of restaurants and bars, acceptable beaches and wonderful, calm and clear sea for excellent swimming.

Our hotel, the small, friendly Marina Hotel, was welcoming with a good pool and snack bar. The rooms, as ever in Greece, were more functional than luxurious but they were clean and tidy and ours had a charming view across the bay.

But for us, it was the sense of community which most won us over. We've been on holidays before and barely spoken to a soul.

Here, we quickly established a friendship with Sarah and Simmo from Scunthorpe, Kevin and Stella from Kent, the Foster family from Doncaster - it was like home from home. We couldn't walk down Aghia Marina high street without meeting someone we knew.

It was probably the relative smallness of the resort and the comradeship borne out of the journey - the only negative part of the trip - which threw us together.

For all Aegina's charm, getting there is a bit of a fuss. Four hours by plane to Athens, coach to Pireaus and a two-hour slow-boat transfer to the island, interspersed with the inevitable waiting around. All in all, it can be a 12-hour journey.

Aegina has plenty to commend it - bustling, charming Aegina Town; the sixth century temple of Aphea, a remnant from when Aegina was Greece's first capital 1,400 years ago; and bays and views which make it once of Greece's most glorious islands.

None of this came over when the island featured on a recent television holiday programme which to our disappointment depicted the island as quiet and charmless.

It's also close enough to Athens - the Acropolis, the ancient city of Agora, Olympic stadium, the Plaka shopping district and a host of other attractions.

The food - an attractive combination of traditional Greek, plus Italian and even French (Captain Cool in Aghia Marina) - is appealing at around 1,200 drachmas (£2.50) for a good main course.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.