Literary Greece itinerary

In the 20th century Greece was the beloved place of many writers, Greek and foreign. Two Greek poets, George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, won the Nobel Prize; Nikos Kazantzakis gave the world Zorba the Greek; and meanwhile British, American and Canadian writers came to the islands and villages to write, fall in love and change their lives. Lawrence and Gerald Durrell spent the happiest years of their youth on Corfu, Henry Miller made Greece the subject of his most luminous book, Patrick Leigh Fermor built a house on the coast of the Mani, and Leonard Cohen wrote his first songs on Hydra.

This nine-day itinerary follows their footsteps from Athens to Corfu, by way of the car-free island of Hydra, the village of Kardamyli in the Mani and the north-east coast of Corfu, where the Durrell family lived the years told in the book and the TV series. It is a trip for readers, with a book to take to each stop, combining culture, sea and some of the most beautiful landscapes in Greece.

Writers in Greece

Writers' journeys to Greece began long before, with Byron and the Romantics, but in the 20th century they became a phenomenon. In the 1930s and 1940s, between Corfu, Athens and the islands, a group of British and American writers discovered a poor, sunlit and hospitable Greece, and described it in books that would make generations of travellers dream. In the 1960s Hydra became a colony of artists and musicians. At the same time modern Greek poetry reached the world through Cavafy, Seferis, Elytis and Ritsos. See also our page on modern Greek literature.

Day 1: writers' Athens

Start in Plaka, the district below the Acropolis, where in 1810 Byron lodged at the Capuchin convent that stood beside the Monument of Lysicrates. Climb into the tiny quarter of Anafiotika, white houses built by masons from the island of Anafi, which look like a Cycladic village beneath the rock. The afternoon is for the Benaki Museum, the best place to understand modern Greece, with sections on the War of Independence and 20th-century culture, and a stroll through Kolonaki, the district of literary cafés, up to Lycabettus hill at sunset. In 1939 Henry Miller climbed the hills of Athens with the poet Katsimbalis, the "colossus" of his book. See Athens neighbourhoods.

Where to stay: in Athens, for two nights.

Day 2: museums, books and Philopappos Hill

In the morning, book lovers can visit the Gennadius Library, one of the richest collections of books on Greece, with Edward Lear's travel sketches. Then go to the Acropolis Museum and climb Philopappos Hill, with the finest view of the Acropolis, along paths designed by the architect Dimitris Pikionis. In the evening, a taverna with rebetiko, the music of the ports that fascinated so many foreign writers: see rebetiko.

Day 3: Hydra, Leonard Cohen's island

From Piraeus the hydrofoil reaches Hydra in under two hours. It is an island without cars, where you get around on foot, by donkey or by water taxi. The harbour is an amphitheatre of grey and white stone mansions, built by captains who grew rich on trade in the 18th century and financed the War of Independence.

In 1960 a young Canadian poet, Leonard Cohen, bought a house here with a small inheritance. On Hydra he lived some of the most important years of his life, with the Norwegian Marianne Ihlen, to whom he dedicated So Long, Marianne, and here he wrote novels, poems and some of his first songs, including, by his own account, Bird on the Wire, inspired by the telephone wires that had just arrived on the island. The house is private, but you can walk past it in the upper part of town and look for the bench dedicated to him. Hydra was also home to the painter Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Henry Miller's host in 1939.

Where to stay: on Hydra, for two nights.

Day 4: Hydra on foot

The day is for walking: along the coastal path to Kamini and Vlychos, with their little beaches and seaside tavernas, or uphill to the monastery of the Prophet Elias, at the top of the island. In the afternoon visit the captains' mansions, such as the Lazaros Kountouriotis house museum, and the historical archive. At sunset sit on the cannon-lined ramparts at the harbour mouth, as Cohen and his friends used to.

Day 5: to the Mani

Take the hydrofoil back to Piraeus, pick up a car and drive into the Peloponnese (about four hours to Kardamyli), with a stop in Nafplio or Kalamata. Henry Miller visited Mycenae, Epidaurus and Nafplio in this region, and in The Colossus of Maroussi wrote some of the finest pages ever devoted to Greek light.

Where to stay: in Kardamyli, for two nights.

Day 6: Kardamyli and Patrick Leigh Fermor

Patrick Leigh Fermor, war hero and one of the greatest travel writers of the 20th century, fell in love with this coast in the 1950s, and with his wife Joan built a stone house in an olive grove above the sea, just outside Kardamyli. He lived here for almost fifty years and wrote his most celebrated books, including Mani, devoted to this peninsula. The house, left to the Benaki Museum, is now a writers' residence and can be visited on certain days, by booking. Below the house is the cove where Leigh Fermor swam every day even in old age.

In the afternoon walk in the Viros Gorge, above Kardamyli, or explore old Kardamyli, with the Troupakis towers. In the evening dine by the harbour, watching the sun set over the Messinian Gulf. See also the Venetian Greece itinerary, which passes through the Mani.

Day 7: to Corfu

It is a travel day: drive up the west coast of the Peloponnese, cross the Rio-Antirrio Bridge and reach the port of Igoumenitsa (about five hours), from where ferries reach Corfu in an hour and a half. You can return the car at Igoumenitsa or take it to the island.

Where to stay: on Corfu's north-east coast, near Kalami, for two nights.

Day 8: Kalami and the Durrells' Corfu

The Durrell family arrived on Corfu in 1935: the widowed mother Louisa, the eldest brother Lawrence, future author of The Alexandria Quartet, and young Gerald, who discovered his passion for animals on the island and told the story, many years later, in My Family and Other Animals, one of the funniest books of the 20th century, which also became a successful TV series. Lawrence and his wife Nancy lived in the White House on Kalami bay, now a taverna with rooms, where Lawrence wrote Prospero's Cell. The coast between Kalami, Kouloura and Agios Stefanos, facing Albania, with its white-pebble bays and hills of olives and cypresses, is still the same as in their pages.

Spend the day between swims, and in the afternoon drive up Mount Pantokrator, the island's highest point, with views over Albania and, on the clearest days, sometimes as far as the Italian coast.

Day 9: Corfu Town

On the last day stroll through the UNESCO-listed old town of Corfu, between the two Venetian fortresses, the Spianada square, where cricket is still played, a legacy of the British protectorate, and the arcades of the Liston, built by the French on the model of the rue de Rivoli. Visit the church of St Spyridon, the island's patron saint, and Gerald Durrell fans can look for the places where he lived and studied with his beloved tutor, the naturalist Theodore Stephanides. In the afternoon, before your flight, visit the Achilleion, Empress Sisi's palace. Fly home from Corfu; see Corfu Airport.

How much it costs

To save money: in low season Hydra and Corfu cost much less; on Hydra you can stay in a guesthouse in the upper part of town, away from the harbour.

Practical information

• Hydrofoils to Hydra: leave Piraeus several times a day; in summer it is wise to book.
• Leigh Fermor house: visits are booked on the Benaki Museum website and do not run every day; check dates before planning your trip.
• Corfu: the road along the north-east coast is narrow and winding; a small car is more practical.
• Language: learning kaliméra, good morning, and efcharistó, thank you, opens many doors, as the writers of those days discovered.
• Documents: EU citizens only need a valid identity card. See ferries to the Greek islands.

Variations

• Kazantzakis's Crete: the Nikos Kazantzakis Museum in Myrtia, his ancestral village, and his tomb on the walls of Heraklion, with the epitaph "I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free". See the Minoan Crete itinerary.
• Elytis's Lesbos: the island of the Nobel poet's family, with the museum of Theophilos, the naive painter he loved.
• Ritsos's Monemvasia: the poet's house in the town on the rock; see the Venetian Greece itinerary.

What to read before you go

Each stop has its book: for Athens, Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi; for Hydra, Leonard Cohen's poems and novels; for the Mani, Patrick Leigh Fermor's Mani; for Corfu, Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and Lawrence Durrell's Prospero's Cell. And for the whole journey, the poems of Seferis.

Final tips

• Pace: don't rush; this itinerary is made for reading in the sun and stopping longer than planned.
• Combinations: it combines well with the Odyssey itinerary, which passes through Corfu and the Ionian Islands.
• A tip: at Kalami, order a coffee on the terrace of the White House early in the morning and read the first pages of Prospero's Cell: Lawrence Durrell wrote them a few metres away, looking at the same sea.

See also our other itineraries in Greece.

Corfu on the map

Nearby