“Discover Ithaca’s golden bays and ancient legends” is the title of the article of London Times, in which the British newspaper recommends the Greek island as the ideal destination for a walking holiday.

Read below segments of the article:

Not many people make it to Ithaca. The island is too small and hilly for flights — 14 miles from north to south and 4 miles across at its widest — so there is no airport. People generally fly to neighbouring Kefalonia and stay there in nice villas and swanky hotels by its famed sweeps of gorgeous soft golden sand.

It is also the perfect base for a walking holiday that brings to life the story of a figure from antiquity who may (or may not) be this island’s most famous former resident. Odysseus, as described by Homer in his epic poem, leaves his wife, Penelope, on an unidentified island to fight in the Trojan War in the 13th or 12th century BC; no one is certain of the exact date. He takes part in the faraway conflict, but is caught up in a series of misadventures as he attempts to return, including run-ins with witch doctors, cannibals, six-headed monsters, Sirens (maidens who sing to lure sailors to shipwreck) and the legendary lotus-eaters, with their stupor-inducing lotus plants.

Odysseus is away for ten years before he makes it back to the unidentified island, which is described by Homer, 300 years after Odysseus died. “There are no tracks, nor grasslands,” he writes. “It is a rocky severe island, unsuited for horses, but not so wretched, despite its small size. It is good for goats.”

Well, there is certainly no shortage of those in northern Ithaca — and in the company of Ester van Zuylen, a Dutch guide who offers Odysseus-themed walks in this part of Ithaca, other clues that point towards the island being the home of Odysseus are soon revealed.