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It's still possible to find a Corfu unspoilt by mass tourism – here's how
If Eau de Corfu were a fragrance, there'd be a couple of editions.
'Kavos Summer' would combine aromas of Ambre Solaire, lager, souvlaki and moped fumes. 'Durrell Spring', meanwhile, would feature top notes of orange blossom and sea breeze, hints of wild oregano and fennel, undertones of pine and olive.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that there is more than one Corfu. There's the fly-and-flop destination typified by sprawling resorts.
Then there's the magical isle evoked so lyrically in conservationist, naturalist and presenter Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals: tortoises lumbering through somnolent olive groves, paint-peeling villas, fireflies and figs.
That's the version that sparked my vicarious long-distance love affair with Corfu many decades ago – though I'd never actually visited.
This year marks the centenary of Gerald's birth, celebrated with events including a revival of the play of My Family in Corfu Town. So the time seemed ripe for a first visit to Corfu, to search for his old haunts.
On the face of it, this is easier said than done. In the postwar decades Corfu's tourism industry boomed, redrawing stretches of coastline. In 2024, nearly two million international air passengers landed, a figure doubled by domestic flights, cruise-ship passengers and ferries.
'Gerry thought it was partly his fault that Corfu succumbed to mass tourism,' I was told by Lee Durrell, his widow, who has a home in the island's hilly centre. 'In the 1960s, he became distraught at the pace of shoreline development, believing it was in some ways a result of the popularity of his books.'
In truth, the worst of overtourism in Corfu is concentrated in a limited number of spots, largely on the east coast. You'll also find other smaller, more pleasant resorts with luxury villas, family-friendly hotels and welcoming guesthouses.
But historically most Corfiot Italians lived inland, seeking safety from seaborne raids in settlements amid the hilly interior. Today that hinterland is, if not untouched, still largely a sleepy swathe of variegated greens: some four million olive trees interspersed with cypress, myrtle and kermes oak.
How, then, to discover authentic glimpses of Gerry Durrell's childhood paradise? I found the answer – and not for the first time – in a hike: the 110 or so miles of the Corfu Trail, which traverses the island from south to north, winding inland to visit settlements little touched by tourism. Don't expect to find the exact places Durrell depicts, though, cautions Hilary Whitton Paipeti, an English expat who launched the Trail in 2001.
'Not all of the specific locations and moments he recounts may have existed in the way he describes them,' she notes. 'They could be amalgams of various sites and incidents. But you can find similar spots if you know where to look.' Her updated book In the Footsteps of Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell in Corfu (corfudurrellfootsteps) offers handy pointers.
Wary of the fierce heat and hordes of summer, my wife and I walked in April, enjoying the freshness of spring when, Gerry wrote, 'the island was flower-filled, scented, and a-flutter with new leaves'.
Stage-by-stage descriptions of walking routes rarely thrill, so let's paint a broad-brushstrokes picture of a typical day. As the morning stretches wide its arms and yawns, we follow a stony track between veteran olive trees. Cats snooze under chairs, on tables, beneath bushes.
The fluting whistle of a golden oriole, the trills of Sardinian warblers, the liquid babble of goldfinch. Basking blue-faced lizards skitter off the path. Wildflowers jostle for attention, festooned with butterflies: shivering rock roses, flimsy mauve petals crumpled like crepe paper. Ivory lace-flowers, cerulean borage and blowsy, bearded iris. And orchids – so many orchids: pyramidal, horseshoe bee, green-winged, early-purple and titillating naked-man orchids.
Each stage ended on the coast, to find accommodation and food. We'd shed sandy boots, plunge into the limpid Med for a spring-brisk swim, then dither over typical Corfiot dishes: stifado, beef or rabbit simmered with tomatoes, baby onions and red wine vinegar; sofrito, thin slices of veal in garlic, herb and white wine sauce; pastitsada, rich meat stew with pasta; or bourdetto, dogfish or eel in a spicy red sauce.
Inevitably, wildlife encounters were pale echoes of those described by the boy naturalist. On Lake Korission, where Gerry and mentor Theodore Stephanides watched flamingos, we spotted only a lone egret stalking the shallows.
The Durrells enjoyed a nocturnal lightshow as cavorting porpoises set the bioluminescent sea ablaze; we delighted in fireflies dancing like 'green embers' beneath our balcony. Gerry watched mating snakes 'entangled as streamers at a carnival'; I narrowly avoided treading on a pair of horned vipers coupling on the path.
The route stitches together stretches of stony tracks, sandy paths and forest trails, cobbled kalderimi (traditional donkey paths), concrete and asphalt, linking scenic, cultural and culinary highlights.
There's the clifftop Byzantine fortress of Angelokastro, with sweeping views across Palaiokastritsa – reputedly where Odysseus washed ashore, and where parts of recent Ralph Fiennes epic The Return were filmed. Though now much developed, its gorgeously sculpted coves retain the allure that prompted Theodore Stephanides to rhapsodise: 'Palaiokastritsa… with its three bays and rocky headlands, was a dream from another world.'
There were unforgettable characters, too. Above Prasouli Beach we met Mitéra, 'Mother of the Olive Groves'. Impossibly twisted, sinewy and pocked with holes, Mitéra is laden with history – and 10,000 olives in a good year.
Perhaps 1,500 years old, she yielded fruit before England existed, and well before the Venetians – who ruled Corfu for four centuries from 1386 – mandated the planting of the ubiquitous olive groves.
In inland settlements, sightless windows stare from empty houses abandoned when residents sought opportunities on the coast or overseas – a hollowing-out of hill villages being alleviated somewhat by the Corfu Trail.
At his cafe in Dafnata, for example, Kostas Raris refuels hikers with apple pie, baklava and walnut cake washed down with ginger beer, made using a recipe left by the British in the 19th century.
'When I was young, and my father ran this cafe, locals would pop in at six o'clock for an ouzo and half a cigarette – that was all they could afford – en route to their olive groves,' he recalls. 'Now, few people tend their trees, but 20 or 30 walkers come through daily in spring and autumn.'
Like any good story, the Corfu Trail builds to a climax. Our final day's walk climbed steeply from Spartylas on a stony path leading to the decrepit chapel of Taxiarchis, where once-vivid frescos have been sun-bleached and wind-scrubbed. Continuing through magical goblin woodland and the flower-spangled karst plateau, we tackled the island's loftiest peak, 906 metre Pantokrator – its monastery now overshadowed by an unsightly forest of antennae – then descended its northern slopes to Palea (Old) Perithia.
At its zenith, Corfu's oldest continuously inhabited village, established in the 14th century, was a prosperous settlement of some 130 houses served by no fewer than eight churches. In decline from the 1960s, today there's again something of buzz – and not just from bees producing its renowned honey.
Under the leafy pergola of Foros, one of several tavernas opened in historic houses, we glugged icy ginger beer and wiped plates clean of tzatziki and spinach tsigareli with garlicky crusts.
Old Perithia's renaissance reflects hopes that alternative tourism, including hiking, can help revive dwindling settlements away from the beaches – and yield glimpses of lost lifestyles and landscapes Gerry loved.
Erimitis: coastal Corfu's last stand?
In Corfu's far northeast curves the exquisite cove of Kalami. In the Thirties it cast its spell on Gerry's brother Lawrence Durrell, who lived with his first wife, Nancy, in 'a white house set like a dice in a rock already venerable with the scars of wind and water'. You can stay in their apartment, which still holds Larry's typewriter, sideboard and rocking chair, or eat in the well-respected The White House restaurant below.
That once-lonely bay is now increasingly hemmed in by villas, apartments, tavernas and a resort. But a pleasant amble north round headlands and beaches leads to the Erimitis ('Hermit') peninsula – focus of a campaign to prevent planned tourism development.
'This is the last pristine, virtually untouched coastal area of Corfu,' says Dr Simon Karythis, executive director of the Ionian Environment Foundation. 'There are no olive groves, just natural Mediterranean scrub, and no buildings to speak of.'
It's a precious Corfiot remnant of an ancient ecosystem, where oaks, myrtles and strawberry trees shade sandy footpaths lined by orchids; the wider habitat, including three brackish lakes and thriving near-shore seagrass beds, is home to a profusion of birds, terrapins, fish, mammals and invertebrates.
'Erimitis has a high diversity of butterflies – endemic species and some shared with Albania,' explains Karythis. 'It's on an important migratory route for birds, many of which stop over and feed in the lakes. There are otters and dolphins, and vulnerable Mediterranean monk seals have been spotted; we're funding research into possible pupping caves on the peninsula.'
A swathe comprising around one-third of Erimitis was previously government-owned, site of a naval observation post on this closest point to Albania. But following Greece's financial crisis, in 2012 rights to develop around one-third of the headland were sold to investment company NCH Capital, whose plans included a high-end hotel, holiday apartments and villas.
The current status of the project is unclear, though information provided to The Telegraph by NCH in 2019 stated that only 7 per cent of the land would be built on, that the design complies with Greek sustainable development requirements, and that it would enhance environmental protection. Yet campaigners believe any substantial development would be devastating for Erimitis.
For now, it's a uniquely beautiful patch to explore on foot, with near-empty swimming beaches, serene lagoons and dense thickets providing delicious pools of shade and wildlife habitat – a last untouched coastal corner of Gerald Durrell's 'Garden of the Gods'.
'It's wonderful that Erimitis has remained so unscathed by mass tourism,' muses Lee Durrell. 'It's a really wild place where you can stroll beautiful footpaths, and look for reptiles and butterflies and migratory birds. Right now, Corfu has an amazing opportunity to do something really fine – to be bold and brave, and save this last gasp of nature.'
Walks Worldwide (01962 302085) offers a 15-day Corfu Trail holiday covering the entire route plus nights in Kalami, close to Erimitis, from £1,329 including flights, B&B and two dinners. Shorter itineraries also available.
