A Edward Lear,

conhecido pelo "homem do nonsense", se deve um belo livro de viagens, por ele próprio ilustrado, que dá pelo nome de The Cretan Journal. Sobre Rethymon, cidade (mais um lugarejo, dir-se-ia, na altura) por ele pintada nesta imagem, escreveu Lear a 8 de Maio de 1864. Era um Domingo, por volta das dez e meia da manhã: "We [ele e o seu "mordomo" e fiel companheiro Giorgis] dawdled back, heat already beginning to be great. The long lines of Rethymon are a bore, but the clear sparkle of the city and the broad band of Sphakian snow white separating lilac and blue is fine, in the mountain distance." Quando puderem, leiam este livro.

O azul do horizonte em Corfu,

segundo Lawrence Durrell, em Prospero's Cell: "Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins. All the way across Italy you find yourself moving through a landscape domesticated - each valley laid out after the architect's pattern, brilliantly lighted, human. But once you strike out from a flat and desolate Calabrian mainland towards the sea, you are aware of a change in the heart of things: aware of the horizon beginning to stain at the rim of the world: aware of islands coming out of the darkness to meet you. [...] You enter Greece as one might enter a dark crystal; the form of things becomes irregular, refracted. Mirages suddenly swallow islands, and everywhere you look the trembling curtain of the atmosphere deceives."

A propósito de "Prospero's Cell", de Lawrence Durrell,

escreve Jo Collen: It was Lawrence Durrell who had the idea to move to Corfu with Nancy in the winter of 1935. He had been inspired by his friend, George Wilkinson who had sent letters describing the warm sunshine of Corfu. Increasingly frustrated with “Pudding Island” and “the English Death”, Lawrence longed for something different and Nancy, an artist, was happy with the idea of a more bohemian lifestyle on a Greek Island. When Louisa Durrell, or “Mother Durrell” as the family called her, announced that the whole family would also like to move to Corfu, Lawrence was quick to distance them, but he didn’t exclude his wider family from his plans entirely. Lawrence and Nancy arranged to travel first to Corfu, with the rest of the family coming later. Once in Corfu, Lawrence and Nancy at first settled in a little villa in Perama that Lawrence called Villa Bumtrinket. When the rest of the family arrived, they set up home in The Strawberry Pink Villa close by, overlooking the iconic Mouse Island. Aqui fica uma imagem de Nancy, mencionada no obra apenas como N. Sobre ela, escreveu o poeta arménio Ivan Zarian (segundo ele próprio, "o maior poeta arménio"): "Dear Durrell: we miss you but most your beautiful wife. Dear Boy, yes, certainly I have immortalized you this week."

A não perder na RTP2

A série inspirada em The Corfu Trilogy, da autoria de Gerald Durrell, irmão mais novo do nosso colega Lawrence. Passa ao domingo à noite. Uma terna imersão na memória de uma família em busca de um novo sentido para a vida, alguns anos após a morte do pai. Aqui vos deixo uma imagem retirada da série, e uma outra com o registo dos anos ali passados (a preto e branco, claro!).