CORFU, GREECE
Corfu Town; a bedroom at Grecotel Corfu Imperial; dining with views towards Corfu Town in the distance; the hotel’s waterside villas
Two series of hit ITV drama The Durrells have sketched out a wild, eccentric, sun-baked picture of Corfu – for many of us first revealed by Gerald Durrell’s autobiographical book My Family and Other Animals. While tourism has greatly changed the island since the naturalist grew up here in the 1930s, many scenes would be familiar to him. The Grecotel Corfu Imperial hotel sits atop the Kommeno Peninsula, offering panoramic views of showboating sunrises over the nearby Albanian coast. The Ionian Sea is at its warmest as the crowds of summer depart and is vivid with marine life, including dolphins. Meanwhile, butterfies fit through groves of olive trees and lizards scuttle between nooks in dry-stone walls. Corfu Town, where the Durrell family lived, is a 15-minute free bus ride away. It offers relics of Corfu’s Venetian then British former rulers – grand, pastel-painted townhouses and a cricket pitch lined with tavernas. A stay at the hotel also allows exclusive access to Danilia Village, a recreation of a traditional Corfot village that is now being used as a set in the filming of a third series of The Durrells.