It's over ten years now since I made my first visit to Greece's Ionian Islands, to research and write what I naturally hoped would be
the best guidebook to Corfu. I'd written guides to other parts of Greece, to Athens, Mainland Greece and the Greek Islands, but the invitation to write a chunky guide to just one island was a wonderful opportunity.
My only hesitation was that in those days
Corfu still had a bit of a reputation as an island that attracted British lager louts. I was more interested in the island that attracted
Gerald Durrell, whose hilarious book
My Family and Other Animals tells of his childhood on Corfu. His brother, the novelist and poet
Lawrence Durrell, appears in that book as a bit of a fall-guy, and later wrote his own account of Corfu, the equally enjoyable
Prospero's Cell.
Other writers who have covered Corfu include
Henry Miller, whose book
The Colossus of Maroussi is a classic, and more recently
Emma Tennant, who lived on the island. The artist
Edward Lear also visited Corfu. My fears about the lager louts were unjustified, as the island then had started to change its image. The once notorious resort of Benitses was cleaning up its act, and the clubbers and boozers were mainly restricted to the resort of Kavos on Corfu's southern tip.
I spent my first few days in
Corfu Town, which I loved. It had far more of a European feel than I'd expected from a Greek island capital, with several fine museums, great restaurants, and a sophisticated feel to it. I was also lucky to find a hotel that matched that, the
Bella Venezia, which was a great place to hole up and write up my notes on the day we had a terrific autumn storm, when the sky went black, thunder rumbled round the bay, lightning flashed and rain pelted at the windows. Luckily it didn't last long and I was able to visit the rest of the island in pleasant sunshine, taking in the beach resorts and tiny mountain villages.
I'd lost touch with my book a little, as I'd been busy when time came round to update it. Guidebooks are normally updated roughly every two years, but I always seemed to have something else on when update time came round. But last year I spent
three weeks on Corfu and was able to work again on what the publishers decided should be a brand new and overhauled edition.
This morning my
big fat Corfu guidebook arrived, with a new look to the cover. I still get a kick out of seeing my name in print, especially on a book cover. And I still love going to Greece. My next trip will be in a fortnight, to update my guidebook to
Athens. I can't wait.
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After I posted this blog, a Suite101 reader wrote to tell me about his Corfu website, which looks pretty good to me, so if you're planning to visit Corfu, check out the
Holiday Corfu website by clicking
here.
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