With Durrell as guide, we celebrate Dionysus’ old stomping grounds on Naxos, then visit Paros, stop at the glitzy Mykonos (which was far from glitzy in 1976), then visit gloomy Delos, its sister Rhenia, Tinos, Andros, and Syros. We arrive and hike through Lesbos and Lemnos, circle ancient Samothrace, Thasos and Skiathos, finally touring Skyros.Īnd we can hardly neglect the Cyclades. We then continue north to the islands of Samos and Chios.įrom there, Durrell once again hoists his sails and points us into the northern Aegean. After lingering a bit to enjoy the local pleasures, we cross blue waters to Casos, Tilos, Symi, Cos, Leros, Patmos, Icaria, and others. We tie up first in Rhodes, where Durrell was once stationed after the war. We then launch to the nearby Ionian islands, including Paxos, Antipaxos, Lefkas, and Odysseus’ former kingdom, Ithaca.įrom there, we traverse to the southern Aegean, mooring our boat at ports on Crete, Cythera, and of course, Santorini. We join Durrell on his ancient sloop, beginning our travels where he had lived on Corfu.
The format of his travel masterpiece, The Greek Islands, imagines a long sailing trip. At the end of the war, “liberated from my Egyptian prison,” Durrell returned to Greece. He and his wife initially settled in Cairo along with their baby daughter. These adventures later inspired his book, The Greek Islands, giving his descriptions an unusual authenticity.Īfter alternating for six years between Corfu and Athens, Durrell fled Greece in 1941, days ahead of the invading Nazi army. He and his wife Nancy made frequent trips from Corfu to islands throughout the Cyclades and beyond. While on Corfu, he bought a small sloop which he named the Van Norden after a character in Miller’s book. Eliot at Faber and Faber in London, became his friend and publisher. Thus began a forty-five-year friendship based on their love of literature and their personal and artistic setbacks.
During that period, Durrell stumbled across Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and wrote Miller a fan letter. At the same time, he reached out to other writing luminaries. Life on Corfu kicked off his writing career. Like so many travelers before him, he felt he had come home. As a young man-and having found a small house overlooking the sea which he called the White House-Durrell persuaded his mother, siblings, and wife, Nancy Myers, to join him to escape the English winter. He settled in the village of Kalami on the island of Corfu, Greece, in 1935. In The Greek Islands he writes that he was, “… electrified by Greek light, intoxicated by the white dancing candescence of the sun on a sea with blue sky pouring onto it.”
Life in Greece was a revelation colors were pure, the sky endless, the food simple, and the people open.
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