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Odysseus Statue in Vathy Harbour, Ithaca |
My
brother got me a book for Christmas when I was about ten. It was called Theseus and the Minotaur and that book
led to a lifelong fascination with Greek mythology for me. Since I retired a
few years back I have been working on fulfilling dreams I’ve had since I was a
kid. I wanted to walk on the ground where Hercules walked, see where the Spartans
battled, climb the mountain where the oracle of Delphi held sway and see as many mythological
places in Greece as I could while I was still able..
I
have seen Knossos where King Minos built the underground labyrinth for
the dreaded Minotaur, I’ve been to Thermopylae where the 300 Spartans made
their last stand, walked within the Cyclopean walls of Tiryns, stood at the
Lion’s Gate of Mycenae and combined my love of Greek history with motorcycling
around this great country.
My most recent trip to Greece
was to rent a motorcycle and ride solo for two weeks… as I’ve done several
times. The Greek weather and the history of Greece keep bringing me back. But
my last trip in May of this year was for an added reason…to find Odysseus. I
mean to literally find the island of his home. The real Ithaca.
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Ithaca 1976 |
The first time I went to the
island of Ithaca was in 1976 while hitchhiking around Europe. I’d arrived on a
ferry which came there only once a week. I was there for no more than a day
when I fell asleep sunning myself on a
rocky beach near Vathy harbour. I ended up with sunstroke and was very sick for
several days. I was taken to a little clinic in Mitikas back on the mainland by
a kind fisherman where I recuperated. I remember the blisters on my back and
having to carry my heavy backpack afterwards. I remember later in that trip, in
Crete, walking from the hostel in Iraklion to Knossos with that backpack on so
I was pretty tough way back then. That was about an 11 kms walk. I don’t hitchhike
anymore since I can afford the luxury of a motorcycle to get where I want to
go. But in 1976, Ithaca had eluded me.
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Ithaca Storm |
In September 2013 I went back to
Ithaca after riding down from Athens to Sparta. The weather was good until the
day after I arrived by ferry. The skies were ominous and grey and the weather
forecast was not looking much better. Heavy winds and rain were called for and
if you’re a biker that’s not good. But if you’re a biker in Greece that’s even
worse when you’re in mountainous terrain on Greek pavement. That pavement is
just different. It’s shiny and slippery even when it’s dry. Downshifting or
braking going into corners can send you down pretty fast. So, when wet weather
is added to the equation, discretion is the better part of valour. I took the
next ferry to Astakos on the mainland because I had little time left to get
back to Athens for my flight home. Again Ithaca had eluded me. The gods were
against my seeing the home of the hero of the Trojan war.
My trip to Ithaca in May of this
year was going to be different because I was seeking Odysseus’ home on a different island. I would be traveling
to Kefalonia. It is another of the Ionian Islands which lies closest to Ithaca,
less than an hour away by ferry.
Robert Bittlestone, an English
writer had authored a book called Odysseus
Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca which shook my world. Using Homer as
his guide, he proposed something which amounted to a revelation to me. Kefalonia
was the real home of Odysseus! My search for Odysseus’ kingdom had been on the
wrong island in my past journeys.
Homer was a blind poet who lived
3,000 years ago or so and wrote the greatest tales of our time, The IIiad and The Odyssey. These stories were full of names of people and places
from a mysterious lost age and the gods who lived and walked among them. He
named kings and ancient legendary cities that had been lost to the mists of
time. Mycenae, Tiryns, Troy…these were mythological places that no more existed
than Tolkien’s fictional cities of Mordor, Gondor, Moria. However,
archaeologists rediscovered these lost cities and they did so by using Homer’s
descriptions. It shocked people that these legendary places actually existed.
Odysseus’ return home from the
Trojan War took ten years. In Homer’s The
Odyssey, he describes his home in this way:
Around
her a ring of islands circle side-by-side,
Doulichion,
Same, wooded Zachynthos too, but mine
lies
low and away, the farthest out to sea,
rearing
into the western dusk
while
the others face the east and breaking day.
As Bittlestone noted, present
day Ithaca lies to the east of this
little grouping of islands so it is not farthest
out to sea. Kefalonia is furthest west. He studied the terrain of Kefalonia
and saw that it was basically in two parts which were joined by an ithsmus.
This western section of Kefalonia, called Paliki, was the original Ithaca according to Dr. Bittlestone. The convincing facts
as he lays them out show that this is the only location for Ithaca that makes
any sense when you consider Homer’s description of the island. Robert
Bittlestone had become my hero and Odysseus
Unbound my roadmap.
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Paliki in background |
Kefalonia Island lies on a major
geological fault line and is subject to constant earthquake activity. In fact
there was an earthquake earlier this year prior to my arrival there. It caused
damage to roads and roofs (which are mainly comprised of clay tiles). In
1953, the whole island suffered a major 7.2 quake which caused a mass exodus to
the mainland. That quake raised the island 60 cm. Two quakes in 2014 were 6.0 and 6.2 Richter scale. So seismic activity is
nothing new to Kefalonia and to me it helps to explain the Paliki/Ithaca
theory.
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Petani Beach, Paliki |
I stayed on Kefalonia for a
week, playing archaeologist and riding the mountainous coastal roads. I walked
the hills of Paliki and viewed the vistas Odysseus must have viewed. Such a
beautiful island with the greatest beaches in all of Greece. Myrtos Beach and PetaniBeach are in my opinion the most beautiful beaches in the world. Petani Beach
is on the Paliki side of Kefalonia and surely must have been a favourite place
of King Odysseus.
The weather was excellent during
my stay on Kefalonia and the ocean was crystal clear and calm. I savoured the
feeling of floating in the salty water under that startlingly blue sky, knowing I’d
finally done it. I had found Odysseus. It was almost like the gods welcomed me
there, that this third trip to the real Ithaca was the charm.
As I write this it is with great
sadness as I have learned that Robert Bittlestone passed away earlier this year. I would have
loved to have met him.
I know he now walks with
Odysseus.
The Odysseus Unbound Project
continues and memorium can be found at: