Eight places to find the unspoiled Corfu of The Durrells
ITV drama The Durrells has returned for a third series, shining a light on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu (Kérkyra). Can 21st century visitors recapture anything of the family's 1930s island idyll?
Bits are glimpsed in the contemporary filming. Platía Dimarhíou (Town Hall Plaza) in Kerkyra Town has stayed much as it was, complete with a biretta-topped priest striding past the Catholic cathedral. Kumquat fruits (spelt 'koum quats' locally) are still very much in one's face. The olive groves have changed little; the moon continues to shine on the islet-speckled straits towards Albania; the west coast beaches remain heaped with blonde sand.
At a glance | Filming locations from The Durrells
Here are eight more specific spots on Corfu that the Durrells would still recognise:
1. Taverna Khryssomalis (Babis), Kérkyra Town
This zythopsitopoleio ('beer-hall-grill', as the venerable sign translates) predates the Durrells – as does a menu of stews, stuffed cabbage leaves and lentil soup. Raise a glass of potent house wine to their memory, inside or under the arcade opposite.
2. The British Cemetery, Kérkyra Town
In use since 1814; the only difference since the Durrellian era is simply more graves, including military ones from World War II. Gerald would still enthuse over the beautiful spring wildflowers, including orchids, which flourish here.
3. The view from Kanóni
Out towards the little monastery-topped islets of Vlahérna and Mouse Island. Back then both had permanent clerical residents – long since departed – but the cliché-postcard view is the same. Except for the occasional jet coming in to land at the nearby airport runway.
4. íssos beach
The Durrells' motor would have struggled to get here – modern drivers founder in the sand if they stray beyond the car park – but íssos beach on the southwest coast, whose massive dunes starred in For Your Eyes Only, has changed little other than the wooden shacks of a windsurf school.
5. Kouloúra
Gerald wrote My Family and Other Animals while living at cypress-enclosed Kouloúra cove on the northeast coast. The steep shoreline doesn't permit development other than a taverna and a few villas, so the compact, horseshoe-shaped harbour, with just a few boats at anchor, looks much as it did back then.
6. Sinarádes
This spot in western Corfu has kept its hill-town charm. Its quirky Central Corfu History and Folkore Museum displays rural impedimenta that the Durrells saw in daily use. Perhaps they even went for a ride on a papyrélla raft like the one displayed here, made of cane fennel and used locally until the 1940s.
Secret Greece: 18 hidden gems you'd never thought to visit (but really should)
7. Myrtiótissa's monastery
Lawrence's lauded Myrtiótissa beach is now much altered; not so the eponymous, 14th-century monastery, just north uphill. There are no set visiting hours, nor a bell, but coincide with Orthodox pilgrims and a single monk shows you the sacred grotto where the holy icon appeared.
8. Vídos
Forested Vídos island, opposite Kérkyra Town, might have been shunned by the Durrells, with memories of World War I still raw. But if they went, they certainly saw the enormous mausoleum and memorial, built in 1936, honouring the 12,000 Serbian soldiers who died here during 1916 after retreating from defeat by the Bulgarians, Austrians and Germans.