Ithaca

Ithaca, or Ithaki, is a slender, hilly island east of Kefalonia, pinched almost in two at its narrow waist. Its fame is out of all proportion to its size, for this is the storied kingdom of Odysseus, the destination of the ten-year journey home at the heart of Homer's Odyssey. Whether the Bronze Age hero truly ruled here is a question scholars still debate, but the island wears its myth lightly and rewards visitors with beauty rather than grand ruins.

Most people arrive by ferry, the shortest hop being the twenty-minute to half-hour crossing from Sami on Kefalonia to Pisaetos on Ithaca's west coast; other services link Vasiliki on Lefkada and the mainland at Astakos. There is no airport, and the island stays all the quieter for it. The capital, Vathy, sits at the head of one of the largest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, a horseshoe of neoclassical houses rebuilt after the 1953 earthquake and gathered around a calm, deep bay.

Up in the north, the villages of Stavros, Frikes and the pretty harbour of Kioni cling to green hillsides above small pebbly coves. Homeric sites give shape to a day's exploring: the Cave of the Nymphs above Vathy, where Odysseus is said to have hidden the Phaeacians' gifts, the spring of Arethusa, and the archaeological digs around Stavros and the school of Homer. None is monumental, but each adds resonance to a landscape of olive terraces, cypress and glittering sea.

Ithaca is an island for slow days: swimming at coves like Filiatro and Gidaki, walking old mule paths between villages, and eating fresh fish beside the water. It is popular with sailors, walkers and readers drawn by the myth, and best appreciated over several unhurried days from late spring to early autumn. Come for the poetry of the place as much as its beaches, and let the sense of homecoming do the rest.