Few families have captured Corfu as vividly as the Durrells. For Gerald, the island became a giant outdoor classroom of birds, insects, olive groves and hidden wetlands, while Lawrence found inspiration in its sea, light and villages.
We have ranked 10 places that still bring you close to their Corfu, from #10 to #1. And the final two are particularly special — one was a favourite family escape, while the other remains the most iconic real-life Durrell location on the island.
1Kalami and the White House
If there is one place in Corfu where the Durrell story still feels physically present, it is Kalami.
Standing directly beside the sea is the famous White House, where Lawrence Durrell lived with his wife Nancy during the 1930s.
Unlike many locations associated with television adaptations or later interpretations of the Durrell story, this is the real house.
Lawrence wrote here, entertained friends and absorbed the extraordinary northeast Corfu landscape that later became part of Prospero’s Cell.
Gerald and other members of the family also visited Lawrence at Kalami.
What makes the location special today, however, is not simply the building.
Stand beside the water and look towards the steep olive-covered hills surrounding Kalami Bay and it becomes much easier to understand why this part of Corfu had such a powerful effect on Lawrence.
The White House still stands immediately beside the sea and remains one of the clearest physical links between modern Corfu and the real Durrell family.
Come early in the morning or later in the afternoon if you can, when the bay is quieter. Walk along the waterfront rather than simply photographing the house and leaving.
And look beyond Kalami itself. The coastline stretching towards Agni, Kouloura and the foot of Mount Pantokrator is part of the same Durrell landscape.
Almost ninety years after the family arrived in Corfu, much of their island has inevitably changed. Hotels, roads, airports and villas have replaced some of Gerald’s empty countryside. Yet stand beside Antiniotissa at sunset, walk beneath old olive trees or look across Kalami Bay from the White House and fragments of their Corfu are still there.
Perhaps that is why the Durrell story continues to bring people to the island. They did not simply tell readers which places to visit. They taught generations of people to slow down, explore and look more carefully at the natural world around them.
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