The telephone boxes look like traditional British ones but are bright yellow. The letter-boxes are the normal shape, too, but are dark blue. The currency is sterling but the island has its own banknotes, coins and postage stamps - and shopping is vat-free. English is spoken everywhere and British visitors do not need passports - but most of the street names are French.

It’s like that wherever you go in Guernsey - definitely British but distinctly different. Since it is twice as far (about 65 miles) from England as from France, perhaps that is hardly surprising but it certainly adds to the interest of a visit there. Also, the island is very small. The longest distance - between the north-east and south-west tips - is less than 10 miles.

From the educational point of view, the island is a rich resource as well as being conveniently compact. The environmental and transport aspects are obvious as soon as you arrive. Its politics are unusual, too. Though British since 1066, it has its own parliament, the States of Deliberation, with 55 elected members but no political parties.

This year is a particularly important one for Guernsey. Together with the other Channel Islands, it will be commemorating not only the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War but also of its liberation after five years of occupation. Indeed, May 9, the day the German forces finally surrendered, is a public holiday every year, celebrated with street fairs, parades and spectacular fireworks.

Guernsey, however, is interesting for visitors at any time, as well as having pleasant countryside and - thanks to the Gulf Stream - a mild climate. With 20 attractive beaches ranging from pebbly coves to broad sandy bays, it has always been popular for summer holidays. So there is a wide choice of accommodation and plenty of interesting restaurants.

Despite squeezing in a population of nearly 60,000 - rising to about 70, 000 at the height of summer - it still has a gloriously natural coastline. There are no promenades or piers and since 1927 no developments have been permitted on the cliffs.

St Peter Port, the capital and only town, retains an old-world character, largely because any new buildings have to conform to existing designs. Hotels and shops cluster along its picturesque sea-front overlooking a wide, sheltered harbour crowded with yachts.

Because the island’s roads are mostly little more than country lanes, there is a speed-limit of 35mph, falling to 15mph in some places. The buses are specially built narrow ones and at some intersections vehicles have to take turns to cross. Yet most islanders drive quite large cars, providing a constant reminder that Guernsey is an important off-shore financial centre.

Historic sites range from Neolithic remains to wartime German bunkers. There are also some survivors of the huge greenhouses that covered almost one-tenth of the island’s land area until the late 1970s, when soaring costs killed off the once-legendary tomato industry. Instead, cut-flowers (particularly freesias and roses), pot plants and exotic fruits have become the main exports.

One of the surviving greenhouses is used by the Papillon Project for a sheltered workshop producing Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell butterfly pupae. Grown mainly on nettles, they are posted to schools throughout Britain, particularly inner-city ones.

Guernsey also has some excellent museums, though most are closed in winter. Three are in Castle Cornet, the massive fortress at the entrance to St Peter Port harbour. Begun in 1206, it was the Royalists’ last stronghold in the Civil War. Now it houses a glossy Maritime Museum and smaller ones devoted to the old Royal Guernsey Militia and the RAF.

Another attraction there is the noon cannon, fired each day from the castle ramparts by a soldier wearing the Militia uniform.

In St Peter Port, the Guernsey Museum covers everything from history to climate. On the outskirts, Victor Hugo’s house provides a fascinating insight into Hugo’s passions and views on interior design, as it is almost as he left it in 1878 after 14 years there as a political exile from France. Twenty-six Cornet Street in St Peter Port, run by the National Trust of Guernsey, contains a full-size Victorian sweet shop and parlour. The Trust also has a Folk Museum of Victorian domestic and agricultural equipment in an 18th-century farm courtyard at Sausmarez Park. At Fort Grey, built in 1804 as part of the defences against Napoleon, there is a small Shipwreck Museum.

The Occupation Museum near Forest Church tells the story of the German occupation during the Second World War through displays of weapons, uniforms and personal items such as letters and photographs. They vividly portray the islanders’ struggle to survive under the threat of internment, deportation and - until the arrival of a Red Cross ship - starvation.

For a change of scene, there are regular boat trips to the nearby islands of Herm and Sark. About 45 people live on Herm. Only one-and-a-half miles by half a mile in size, it has a tiny church, several houses, a luxurious hotel and a large pub and restaurant. Sark is considerably bigger and has a population of about 600, but cars are banned so visitors either walk around, hire a bicycle or ride in a horse-drawn carriage.

o Information (including accommodation lists) from States of Guernsey Tourism, P.O. Box 23, St Peter Port, Guernsey GY1 3AN. Tel: 01481 723552. For details of Papillon Project. Tel: 01481 728007.