The Secret Harbours of Ithaca: Walking with Homer

You do not visit Ithaca. You arrive at Ithaca. The word itself carries the weight of an entire literary tradition—the ten-year voyage, the patient wife, the strung bow, the homecoming. But what strikes you when the ferry slides into the harbour of Vathy is that the island is utterly, almost defiantly, un-mythologised. There are no kitsch Odysseus gift shops. There are fishing boats. There is a kafeneio playing old Greek music.

The island is green and dramatic in a way the Cyclades never are. The hills are dense with cypress and olive, the light filtering through them in long, golden shafts in the late afternoon. The roads are narrow and treacherous, but the reward for navigating them is a series of small, secret bays—Filiatro, Gidaki—accessible by dirt track, each one a sheltered crescent of impossible peace.

The mythological archaeology is scattered liberally across the island. The Cave of the Nymphs, a natural grotto near Vathy, is where Odysseus hid the treasure he brought from Phaeacia. You crawl through a low entrance in the rock and find a damp, mossy chamber that smells of earth and time. Whether or not Homer's hero ever existed, people have believed in him here for millennia. That belief has weight.

At the end of a long day, walk to the harbour of Kioni in the north of the island and watch the sun set behind the mountains. Order octopus from the old woman who runs the taverna that has no name. Drink the local wine, which is slightly sour and cold. Think about journeys. You are exactly where you need to be.