Ithaca Road Trip

After finally moving on from Kioni we made our way down to Vathy, the capital of Ithaca. We tied up to the town quay and hired a car for the day to fully explore the island.

Since antiquity, Ithaca has been considered the home of Odysseus, mythological character and hero in the epic works by the great Greek poet, Homer. As the foundational works of Ancient Greek literature, Illiad and the Odyssey are presumed to be the work of the King of Poets, yet Homer himself is almost a myth too. Nevertheless, his epic poem Odyssey focuses on the ten-year journey home of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. Although Homer’s stories lie somewhere between myth and history, they are inextricably linked to the island of Ithaca. 

With this influence stoking the flames of legend, we set out to absorb this bewitching land. Tackling the sharp hairpin turns that wind through the lush greenery and sit like barrettes in Mother Nature’s leafy hair, we climbed up and down the steep mountains in our little box car with iffy brakes. 

We made the treacherous journey 800 metres up Mount Neritos, Ithaca’s highest peak, to the Monastery of Panagia Eleousa. The views from the top were simply breathtaking, and worth the white-knuckle ride up! We clambered over the tumbledown ruins of the archaeological site known as the School of Homer, and rumoured long-lost palace of Odysseus himself. We lunched on the waterfront in the quaint village of Frikes. And we summited another mountain in the centre of the island, where the Monastery of Panagia Kathariotissa also sits high in the sky. Looking from the bell tower back down across the Bay of Molos we spotted Long Summer moored in the distance in the harbour of Vathy. 

Spending the day in this evocative landscape was simply charming. And although Ithaca symbolised the end of Odysseus’ adventures, it is only just the beginning of our own Greek odyssey.