Ithaki

It was exciting to see the mountains of Ithaki emerging from the mist.Not only because it was the end of nine hours of bus and ferry from Athens, but also because I had dreamt of returning. I was on Ithaki 30 years ago, almost to the day. Now I was back on this small island in the Aegean, home to Ulysses (who finally returned after 20 years), and my uncle Denis.

He wasn’t born there, but his heart always belonged to Ithaki. Having lived most of his life in Melbourne, educated there, raising a family and teaching at a university, he decided to return to the home of his parents. He and his wife, Jean, spend about half their time in the summer of Ithaki and the rest in the summer of Melbourne.

We stayed in Denis’s house in Stavros, a little village in the northern half of the island. Ithaki is very mountainous, with steep drops straight down to the sea. Nearly everyone on Ithaki has a view. Villages and churches are built on the cliff edges. The roads, not many with barriers, wind around the mountains. Closer to the top, goats with bells around their necks, not worried about approaching cars, walk off the edge of the road and immediately disappear down the mountain. Beautiful bays at every bend. We swam in clear warm flat water, with mountains towering above. The beaches are of large white pebbles which are very difficult to walk on. Olives trees behind provide shade.

The beauty of Ithaki is that it is not on the tourist circuit. A number of yachts call in to anchor overnight in the little bays. One of the most popular is Kioni. Another beautiful bay in the north is Frikes, where we enjoyed lunch at a water side restaurant. Jean and Denis eat out for most meals. Lunch, then siesta in the afternoon (most shops are closed between 2 and 6) and then go out for dinner about 8:30pm. Stavros has several eating places in the plateia. It was wonderful to be able to eat healthy, delicious food again.

Sitting on Denis & Jean’s back patio, with views to the mountain village of Exogi and the sea and islands to the north, a herd of black faced sheep strolled by with their bells clanging. The island has olive trees everywhere, but most are no longer harvested. A generation ago, many of the young Ithakans left to live in Australia and the US, and now some are returning to live in retirement. I had to visit the old house of Denis’s family, where I had stayed on my previous visit. It had a cold dip shower then, with the water collected from the roof and stored in large underground tanks. Water is still collected in the same way and is a very scarce resource. Short showers are required but now there is hot flowing water.

It was sad to see Ithaki in the ferry’s wake again, but I’m confident I won’t leave it so long to return next time.