Ithaca

ΑSmall, green and famous for a poem

Ithaca is the second smallest of the seven main Ionian islands — 96 square kilometres, 2,862 people at the 2021 census — and it is shaped like two hills joined by a neck of land so narrow that you can see the sea on both sides at once. It is generally identified with the Ithaca of the Odyssey, the home Odysseus spent ten years trying to reach, though scholars have argued about it for two centuries and still do.

The island has no airport and no resort. What it has is a handful of harbours, a lot of olive and cypress hillside, and three villages that people fall for: Vathy, the capital, wrapped around one of the deepest natural harbours in the Mediterranean; and Kioni and Frikes in the north, where the yachts tie up in summer and the pace drops to nothing.

ΒWhat the Odyssey left behind

Nothing here is a ticketed monument, which is part of the pleasure. The Cave of the Nymphs above Dexa bay is where Odysseus is said to have hidden the Phaeacians' gifts; the School of Homer above Stavros is a Mycenaean site that some archaeologists have proposed as his palace; the Arethusa Spring in the south, reached on an hour's walk along a cliff path, is where the swineherd Eumaeus watered his pigs. At Aetos, on the island's narrow waist, Heinrich Schliemann dug for the palace and found the ancient town of Alalkomenae instead. The Archaeological Museum in Vathy holds the finds.

ΓVillages and the long views

Anogi, high on the northern hill, has a Byzantine church with frescoes and a field of strange standing rocks below it, one of them — the Araklis — about nine metres tall. Exogi is half-abandoned and looks west over the whole northern sea. Perachori above Vathy has the ruins of the medieval village below it. The monastery of Kathara, at 600 metres on the shoulder of Mount Neritos, is the best viewpoint on the island.

ΔBeaches

Small, pebbly and clear. Gidaki is the famous one — reached by boat from Vathy or a stiff forty-minute walk over the headland — and Filiatro and Sarakiniko are the easy drives from the capital. Dexa is where the Phaeacians are supposed to have put Odysseus ashore, which is a lot of history for a small bay with a canteen. In the north, Afales and Polis Bay are bigger and emptier.

ΕGetting there and when to go

There is no airport; the nearest is Kefalonia (EFL). Ferries run to Pisaetos and Vathy from Sami on Kefalonia and from Astakos on the mainland, and in summer there are links from Lefkada to Frikes — see ferries. Most visitors arrive via Kefalonia, which makes the two islands an easy pair. A car or scooter is worth having; the island is small but very steep. June and September are ideal. In winter almost everything closes and the ferry timetable thins to a thread.