"Kerkyra, Kerkyra", George Katsaros, Rena Vlachopoulou

A Greek editor, Yiannis Kalaitzoglou, once included this song about Corfu in an anthology of traditional Corfiot folk-songs!

I translated one stanza for my book, The Ionian Islands and Epirus (pp. 66-67):

"The tastiest young girls
I saw in Palaiokastritsa

And the freshest fish are found
Only in Benitsa".


Get the picture?

It's a novelty song from the Rena Vlachopoulo film, The Countess of Corfu (1972). It seems to symbolise the dominant imaginative landscape of Corfu and Greece in the 1960s and 1970s. They hadn't heard of feminism then.

The song features the once iconic landmark views like Pontikonisi and Palaiokastritsa.

Here's another piece of selective nostalgia. Would it were always like that!