Greek islands

Get in the mood for whitewashed villages, rugged mountains, waterfront tavernas and impossibly blue seas – before you land.

Watch

Mediterraneo, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992, is an Italian love letter to Greece. In 1941, after their ship is sunk, a motley crew of reluctant Italian soldiers is stranded on a seemingly deserted Greek island (really Kastellorizo). The locals gradually emerge and take the men into their hearts – and, in some cases, beds – in a charming, romantic and sweetly funny film that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Also consider...

Mamma Mia! (2008): Fortunately for tuneless Pierce Brosnan, the setting (mostly Skopelos) and Meryl Streep’s antics matter more than the ABBA songs. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001): The most egregious historical inaccuracies of Louis de Bernières’ bestselling novel didn’t make the film but plenty of questionable accents did. Still, Kefalonia looks gorgeous.

Read

Charmian Clift is one of Australia’s most unjustly neglected authors. She and her writer husband, George Johnston, were pioneer adopters of Greek island life, moving in 1954 – long before such a thing was fashionable – to Kalymnos then on to Hydra. Clift’s funny, insightful, sharply observed accounts of the period, Mermaid Singing (1956) and Peel Me a Lotus (1959), can be ordered online as one single print-on-demand volume from independent booksellers. Also consider...

My Greek Island Home (2012): Australian artist, photographer and designer Claire Lloyd had a thriving career and glamorous London life until illness laid her low. Moving to a small village on Lesvos restored her health and joy in living and she pays tribute to the island with a combination of words, sunlit photographs and simple, perfect recipes.

Listen

Even if you don’t recognise Mikis Theodorakis’s name, it’s all but impossible to experience the Greek islands without hearing his Zorba’s Dance (1964). A national hero who went from freedom fighter to political prisoner to parliamentarian, he composed symphonies, operas, and ballet and film scores. His album, The Classic Collection, shows his range. Also consider... My Family and Other Animals (1956): Travelling with children? The whole family will enjoy the 2010 audiobook version – narrated by Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville – of Gerald Durrell’s much-loved, highly fictionalised comic memoir of life on Corfu amid creatures great and small. (Purists be warned: it’s abridged.) Leonard Cohen’s Bird on the Wire (1969): Like So Long,

Marianne, it was inspired by his time on Hydra.