The blue and white paperback is everywhere. Eight years after its debut, Corelli's Mandolin still crops up in airport bookstores, rural coffee shops, tattered pages face-down on sandy beaches. So you'd expect the Greek island Kefalonia - where Louis de Bernières set his best-selling book - to be a tacky theme park of star-crossed Mediterranean love.

Aghioi Theodoroi, a squat white lighthouse outside Argostoli, recalling the 1820 British original.

Amazingly enough, it's not. The hype breezed right by, leaving the turquoise waters and forested slopes free of spin-off kitsch. A 'Corelli Cafe' pops up in one port town, but otherwise it's easy to forget a blockbuster novel calls this home. The area doesn't pander to the craze, while remaining gracious to the odd moon-struck tourist. After all, why should a proud island redefine itself because of a foreigner's book - let alone one inspired by a package holiday?

The movie's lukewarm reception helped keep the hordes away. The 2001 release starred Nicolas Cage as the exuberant Italian soldier (sporting a much-ridiculed, vowel-fat accent), Penelope Cruz and John Hurt.

They filmed on sets in the town of Sami, because the original location - the island's capital Argostoli - disappeared in a cloud of rubble during the ferocious 1953 earthquake. Functional concrete cubes replaced much of the quaint Venetian architecture.

The obelisk crowning Argostoli's Drapano bridge, built by the British in 1813.

Yet busy, bustling Argostoli still has charm. Fishing boats dock at the palm-lined wharf, where a wave mosaic meanders along the quay. Farmers buy supplies and sip beer under neon lights. Village girls giggle along the pedestrian shopping avenue, debuting their new heels before the pink, peeling tourists.(CONTINUE...)