Ionian Islands in Venetian hands since 1238. The islands thus became the only part of the Greek-speaking world to escape Ottoman rule, which gave them both a unity and an importance in Greek history they would otherwise not have had. Corfu was the only Greek island never conquered by the Turks. Under Venetian rule, many of the upper classes spoke Italian (or Venetian in some cases) and converted to Roman Catholicism, but the majority remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously. In the 18th century, a Greek national independence movement began to emerge, and the free status of the Ionian islands made them
Albanian Ionian Sea Coast to the east, Greece to the south and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The coastline has a total length of and specifically marked by a mountainous landscape supplied with deep bays, numerous islands, high cliffs, rocky and sandy coasts and a unique marine life. The Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea positioned south of the Adriatic Sea, which extend from Sicily up to the Strait of Otranto between Salento and Bay of Vlorë. It is bordered by Italy in the west, Greece and Albania in the east. Though considered by ancient authors to be part of