Why go
Read Durrell for an account of the island's people and wildlife, then compare it with Corfu's present landscape. Film fans can recognise the Achilleion, Old Town streets, Pontikonisi, Issos Beach and the New Fortress in the 1981 Bond film. The pleasure lies in finding real locations, while remembering that fiction reshapes them.
The full story
Gerald Durrell drew on his childhood years on Corfu for My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, and The Garden of the Gods. His brother Lawrence wrote Prospero's Cell, a very different account of the island's landscape and society. Mary Stewart set This Rough Magic on Corfu too. These works give you several lenses for the same place: natural history, memoir and fiction. For Your Eyes Only used locations across the island rather than one compact film trail. A casino scene was filmed at the Achilleion, and other scenes use Corfu city's streets, Pontikonisi and the New Fortress. The dune landscape of Issos Beach appears in a beach buggy chase. A wedding scene was filmed at the Bouas-Danilia traditional village. Treat the film's sequence as editing, not a route: its locations are spread across the island. If you have only a city visit, the Old Town and New Fortress make a more coherent pairing than trying to chase every scene.
Useful to know
- For a film-focused day, group Old Town and New Fortress scenes; leave Issos Beach for a separate south-coast outing.