TThis is not where you would expect an article about one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean to start. It’s the end of winter, 2021. Kensal Green Cemetery in west London: the imperial mausoleums topple and crumble, low clouds dissolve into rain. We are still in that strange phase of the pandemic where we are masked and newly aware of our bodies and the space around them. We are here to bury Nikos, a man who for me, for many, was the incarnation of Corfu.
I’d spent my twenties finding the perfect Greek island, jumping from the well-trodden (Mykonos, Santorini, Kefalonia) to the more obscure (Kythira, Symi, Meganisi). None quite matched the vision I had dreamed of as a child, as I passed from Robert Graves to Mary Renault, and then to Lawrence Durrell and John Fowles. Greece was an idea before it was a place: freedom and deep thought, a constellation of sand, salt and thyme.
Then on a whim I accepted an invitation to play cricket in Corfu.
I knew little about the island at the time – not about its strategic history, nor about how that position had shaped a culture that is at once Greek, Venetian and British. I hadn’t yet walked through the Liston, the elegant colonnaded arcade that could be Venice, Trieste, Bologna or Perugia if it weren’t for the cricket pitch. The field is surrounded by a parking lot; the groundskeepers battle heat, splashing salt, digging children and dirty dogs. Yet it remains the only cricket ground in the world that I know of that is set in one UNESCO World Heritage Site. As you stand guard there, look up at the old fortress for its sturdiness, and at the Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George for its elegance and flair.
I went out with the Lord’s Taverners, a British sports charity team. We were a motley crew: a couple of former internationals – Andy Caddick and Chris Cowdrey – some actors, entertainers and a handful of writers, including myself. It turned out that the Corfiots were very good at cricket. The Greek national team is almost entirely from the island. We were soundly beaten and then comforted by warmth, generosity and a series of excellent dinners in the old town.
It was at one of those dinners – at the Pergola – that I met Nikos Louvros and his wife, Annabelle, our hosts and the founders of Cricket Corfu. Nikos was boisterous Greek, full of wild energy; Annabelle was English in that specific way that deeply resonates with Greece and builds a life around it. I recognized the impulse. By the end of the meal of lamb, ouzo and excellent local wine, we had planned our future together: we would launch a literary festival.
In the years that followed, that vision took glorious shape. Corfu Literary Festival started modestly: at our first edition, in 2017, there were as many speakers on stage as there were people in the audience. I remember Nikos’ hope, irritation and finally, characteristically, the laughter when invited guests did not show up. But there was never any feeling that it would stop. With Nikos next to you, everything seemed possible.
Slowly, supported by local support, the festival grew into something much bigger than we had imagined. We’ve had Stephen Fry and Sebastian Faulks, Bettany Hughes and Natalie Haynes, Matt Haig and Tom Holland. They came and spoke, they remained in heaven Kontokali Bay Hotelor in the villas and apartments of Ionian estatesand they fell in love with Corfu just like me. Many have returned to speak several times.
Nikos lived for this – because he showed others the beauty and drama of the island he was born on, left and returned to. He’s gone now, but the festival continues. It returns in September, bigger and more magical than ever, with Homer’s Odyssey at its center – a fitting subject for an island where the mythical and the mundane still blend easily.
This is what I have learned from Nikos and from Corfu over the years: swim early, before the day warms up and the water still has a light bite. Swim after lunch, when the sea feels silky smooth. Swim at dusk, when the surface retains the heat of the day and the light becomes thick and slow. Corfu is big enough and so varied that you can build an entire route around the water without feeling like you’re repeating yourself.
On the west coast, Myrtiotissa remains the beach that comes closest to a private wonder. Located in a steep green cradle, it is an initiation to reach it. Not unreasonably, Durrell called it “perhaps the most beautiful beach in the world”.
Paleokastritsa possesses a different kind of beauty. The monastery above the bay overlooks a number of bays where the water is so clear that you can see the rocks far below, like a second landscape hanging in blue.
Then there’s the northeast, which has calmer waters, protected coves and a more intimate coastline. Agni Bay is a gentle coastline suitable for long lunches. Agni Tavern sits so close to the water that you can leave your table, swim and come back, still tasting salt. Eat fish, eat simply, let time loosen its grip. If you can, come by boat: the northeast coast has a tradition of taking water taxis between bays, and there’s something unmistakably Corfiot about stepping straight from the deck to lunch.
One surprise – especially if your image of the Greek islands is Cycladic sparseness – is how green Corfu is. The interior rises and folds like a small country. Olive groves stretch for miles; cypress trees mark the skyline. Drive into the villages above Paleokastritsa and you reach Lakones, perched high enough that the island suddenly feels vast. Bee Boulisthe food is good, but it’s the view on the terrace that you come for, the feeling of stepping straight into the blue horizon.
Corfu’s cuisine is not what you usually think of as Greek: shaped by Venetian influence, by centuries of contact with Italy and by products from the island’s land and sea. Pastitsada is a beef stew with pasta; stir fry is slices of beef or veal stewed in a sauce of white wine, vinegar, garlic and parsley; bourdeto is fish stew.
Make time for a night out in Corfu Town Jump – contemporary but down to earth, with excellent ingredients and an excellent wine list. Then go get an ice cream Papagiorgios. Walk through the old town with a cone in hand, the stone still warm, and you will feel part of a long tradition of summer evenings.
In 2020, in a brief, unlikely break between Covid lockdowns, we held the festival as if it were an act of defiance against the gods. The world was half closed; plans changed by the hour. Still, for a few days the island opened its arms and let us in. Chairs were spaced out, masks were put on and taken off, hand sanitizer was on every table – and still there was laughter, ideas, beauty. Things that made us feel human.
One morning Nikos showed up with a boat. He had a knack for that: arriving as if from nowhere, already halfway through the next idea. “Come,” he said. A dozen of us hopped aboard and left town, leaving behind the anxious news cycle and mild anxiety of that year. We ran along the northeast coast, cutting the engine in coves you’d never find from land: patches of gravel, limestone shelves, beaches no bigger than banks. Every time we stopped, we swam as if we were trying to wipe the year off our skin. I felt like freedom, something snatched from the darkness.
That was the last festival Nikos attended. He died of Covid in January – on my birthday.
When I think of Nikos now, I think of that day on the water: of joy under pressure, of how precious it becomes. When he died, the island felt changed – no less beautiful, but more charged, as if the light carried sadness in waves. Yet Corfu also teaches something: that love for a place can outlive the person who brought you there, and become a way to honor him or her.
I tried that my way too. My novel A Stranger in Corfu is dedicated to Nikos. It emerged from this island – the layered past, the atmosphere of secrecy and hospitality, the feeling that stories stick to the land. The novel is essentially a love letter: an attempt to give proper attention to a place that has given me more than I can easily list.
Go to Corfu and don’t rush. Swim often. Drive into the hills. Eat as if time is a gift. Let the island reveal itself at its own pace – slowly and all at once.
And if one day someone shows up with a boat and an idea, say yes.
A stranger in Corfu by Alex Preston is published of Canongate (£18.99). To support The Guardian, buy a copy Guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. The Corfu Literary Festival 2026 runs from 21-September 27
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