We'd heard many stories about the island of Ithaca and how Homer's Odyssey attributed many of Odysseus' voyages to this area. There are many references to both Homer and Odysseus (Ulysses) around the island although it's hard to know exactly which are authentic or just myths. We decided to hire a car and travel up the narrow mountain roads past Stavros at Exogi to visit Homer's school (or the crumbling remains of it).
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| a well in the ruins |
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| Part of the ancient site (although these looked like they were more recent add-ons) |
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| The ruins of Homer's school |
The ruins were just that, although some areas where the huge stones remain appear to have withstood some 3000 yrs of neglect and looked very believable. Behind the School's ruins was the beginning of a stone path that headed up the mountain. We followed it up and
felt fairly impressed with our efforts to climb a 700 ft rocky path to nearly the top.
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| The ancient rocky steps |
From the top of the mountain steps you could see across the bay and beyond. It's a pity that Greek tourism has not made more of these sites. They seem to just be forgotten.
We did not really enjoy our time in Vathi marina. It is a large port that services the island and does not appear to concentrate on tourism. No water or power made our choice of just a couple of days easy.
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| Vathi |
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| Looking across to Cephalonia |
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| The main street of Stavros |
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| Frikes |
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| The plaques commemorating the resistance in 1944 |
We enjoyed our car trip to the rest of Ithaca especially Frikes and a small village in the centre of the island, Stavros.
Frikes is a quaint marina tucked in a bay on the north coast and appears to serve mostly local boats.
It was also a sight where during WW2 local Greek citizens made a valiant attempt to protect the town from the invading German forces who at first were repelled and who then later captured the town, killing those who resisted.
