The Odyssey: Where to Visit in Greece

In Book XII of the Odyssey, Odysseus’ men bind him to the mast of the ship, beeswax in their ears, as he listens to the song of the Sirens. No man, they say, has heard the tune and lived to tell the tale. But this is Odysseus; he has already outwitted the Cyclops Polyphemus, survived Poseidon’s relentless pursuit, and watched Circe turn his men into pigs. Tossed across the wine-dark sea, he is still listening, looking towards the next shore, trying to find his way home.

The Odyssey has survived centuries of reading and retelling, partly because Odysseus is so complex, his desires so muddled. He longs to return to the wife, son, and homeland he loves, yet he also wants to emerge from every trial a hero whose name will outlast him.

James Joyce called him “the complete man” – warrior and wanderer, husband and father, strategist, comrade, and survivor. He is capable of immense cunning and immense grief; proud enough to provoke the gods, human enough to weep for home, and stubborn enough to keep going when almost everything has been taken from him.

The Sirens’ song is so dangerous because it gives voice to something profoundly human: the desire to know what lies beyond the horizon. Odysseus hears it and survives. And we hear it too – in the pull of new shores, in the promise of seeing the world differently and, within it, seeing ourselves differently too.

As we eagerly await the release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on 17 July, we have rounded up our favourite Greek destinations to inspire an Odyssey of your own (preferably with fewer shipwrecks, enchantresses, and many-headed sea monsters).

The Peloponnese

At the start of The Odyssey, Odysseus’ son, Telemachus – played by Tom Holland in the film – leaves Ithaca in search of news of the father who has been missing for ten years, following another ten spent fighting at Troy.

His journey takes him to the Peloponnese, where the war is over but far from forgotten. In the houses of those who returned, Telemachus listens to stories of Odysseus and, in discovering the man his father was, begins to understand the man he himself might become.

It is a fitting place to begin our Odyssey.

Where to stay in the Peloponnese: Villa Antti

Villa Antti occupies a beautiful position above the Nandi Gorge, with the Taygetos Mountains behind it and the Messinian Bay widening below. The house itself is crisp and contemporary, sleeping eight across four bedrooms, with broad terraces, an infinity pool, and gardens planted into Mani’s older landscape of pale stone and silver-green olive trees.

Kardamyli is just four kilometres away, its old houses gathered beneath cypress-covered slopes and its waterfront lined with beaches and tavernas. Beyond the mountains lies ancient Sparta, where Telemachus is welcomed by Menelaus and Helen.

Helen, of course, is the beauty later said to have launched a thousand ships. By the time Telemachus meets her, she is home in Sparta, living with the memory of a war fought over her. She recalls the day Odysseus entered Troy to gather intelligence, disguised as a beggar, dressed in rags, smeared with dirt, and performing humility so convincingly that no one recognised him. No one, that is, except Helen. Beneath the disguise, she saw the intelligence and cunning of the man himself.

For Telemachus, the story offers a glimpse of a father he barely knows. The man he has travelled to find begins, for a moment, to emerge from the legend.

Villa Antti is decidedly less complicated. Glass doors open the rooms onto the pool and gardens, drawing the mountains and bay into almost every part of the house. Days might begin with a swim, continue along Mani’s walking trails or over lunch in Kardamyli, then return to the terrace as the evening light settles across the water – the distant wars of kings and heroes safely lost to time.

Crete

Like Odysseus, Crete has had many identities. Homer describes it as a fair and prosperous island in the midst of the wine-dark sea, home to people beyond counting and ninety cities.

You could call Crete a trickster. No two corners of the island are identical; no two days happen in quite the same way. It is why Odysseus, in disguise, so often reaches for it as his homeland. Crete is so large and old, so full of people and places, that to call oneself Cretan is to sound entirely plausible while remaining almost impossible to place.

Its appeal has endured for much the same reason. There are Minoan palaces and Venetian towns; mountain villages that sit apart from long coastlines; one historical world over another. Crete is beautiful, certainly, but it is also fascinating in its multitudes. Odysseus, who spends much of the poem slipping between stories and selves, could not have chosen a better place to invent another life.

Where to stay in Crete: Villa Orea Thea

For an Odyssey of your own, where else could you stay but Heraklion?

This is one of Crete’s ancient centres, close to Knossos and the world of Minos. Bronze Age ruins lie beyond the city, Venetian walls run through it, and the harbour opens onto the wine-dark sea.

Villa Orea Thea lies just beyond, in the quiet bay of Palaiokastro. The house sleeps six across three bedrooms, with open-plan interiors, broad glass doors, and an infinity pool that keeps the Aegean always in view.

Agia Pelagia is nearby, with tavernas, a sandy beach, and clear water for snorkelling, while Heraklion brings the old city, Knossos, and several thousand years of Cretan history within easy reach.

Back at Villa Orea Thea, the island is quieter. Evenings are spent beside the pool as the lights appear across the bay. Of Crete’s ninety cities, this feels like a good place to start.

Spetses

Visit Athens in the spring and it is easy to see why the ancients imagined Helios carrying the sun across the sky in his flaming chariot. Looking over the Acropolis, the sky is set gradually alight, the marble of the Parthenon all aglow.

Something similar happens when you take the ferry from Piraeus – Athens’ port – to Spetses.

Spetses is an island that can only be reached by sea. It has no airport, few cars, and is mostly pedestrianised, save a few motorcycles. Pine trees cover the landscape, and all hilly roads lead to beaches and Dapia, the grand old port, which welcomes visitors from across the Aegean.

As you sail towards land, it is not hard to feel something of The Odyssey. In the middle of Poseidon’s wine-dark sea, there is a feeling that myth could rear its many heads anywhere. And as the boat slowly reaches the port, for a moment, there is no knowing what might be waiting.

Where to stay in Spetses: Villa Spetses

Fortunately for you, our dear traveller, the island of Spetses harbours no monsters or witches. It does, however, have Villa Spetses.

Built in pale stone and surrounded by Mediterranean gardens, this six-bedroom mansion sleeps twelve, with Spetses Town close enough to reach on foot and the sea always somewhere in view. Terraces wrap around the house, shaded by pergolas and opening onto bright, generous rooms.

The master bedroom has a balcony above the water, while a second lounge downstairs gives larger groups room to spread out. Outside, the pool takes centre stage on the terrace, with the harbour lights appearing below as evening settles over the island.

After crossing Poseidon’s wine-dark sea, Villa Spetses feels particularly welcoming.

Corfu

Modern-day Corfu is traditionally associated with Scheria – Homer’s land of the Phaeacians – and the setting for one of The Odyssey’s most tender passages.

Odysseus reaches its shores alone, weather-beaten, and stripped of almost everything, sleeping beneath a covering of leaves. When he emerges before Nausicaa, Homer says he is like a mountain lion driven from its shelter. It is, perhaps, not the most reassuring first impression.

Nausicaa does not yet know his name. She knows only that a stranger stands before her in need of help. What follows is one of the poem’s clearest expressions of xenia, the sacred obligation to give an unknown traveller food, shelter, and dignity before asking who he is. The Phaeacians feed Odysseus, clothe him, and offer him shelter before inviting him to tell his story. Moved by what they hear, they give him what he has sought for so long – safe passage home.

Corfu suits this striking generosity, and the island itself is full of it. The land is green almost to excess, with cypress trees above the roads and olive groves running towards the sea. Venetian stone gives the old town its gravity, while long tables are an emblem of that glorious Scherian hospitality.

After so much wandering, Scheria is the place where the poem remembers to treat Odysseus with kindness. Corfu is a beautiful place to find it for yourself.

Where to stay in Corfu: Villa Chic View

Villa Chic View understands the pleasures of a generous welcome. Built into the hills of Corfu’s west coast, the house looks across ancient olive groves to the Ionian Sea, with seven bedrooms divided between the main villa and a separate guest house – enough for a suitably Phaeacian feast, though perhaps not the lengthy account of shipwrecks afterwards.

Inside, floor-to-ceiling doors open the main living space onto the pool terrace, carrying the sea view through rooms of pale stone. Outside, a heated pool stretches towards the horizon, shaded pergolas offer comfortable places to read or eat, and an organic garden supplies herbs and vegetables for dinner.

A private chef can turn the day’s harvest into a feast worthy of the Phaeacians, best served beneath the pergola as the light begins to fall across the water.

Villa Chic View offers the kind of hospitality Homer understood well. After all, the measure of a welcome lies not merely in how beautifully you arrive, but in how reluctant you are to leave.

Ithaca

Our Odyssey could hardly end anywhere but rugged Ithaca.

Odysseus’ island is wooded and modest beside the kingdoms and enchanted shores he encounters elsewhere. It has no palace to rival that of the Phaeacians, no ninety cities. It is important because it is his.

Ithaca is the emotional centre of The Odyssey. After crossing a world of gods and monsters, it is Odysseus’ home that feels like the greatest miracle. It is the return he has pursued through ten years at war and another ten at sea – despite several distractions along the way.

Perhaps that is what travel gives us at its best. It draws us beyond the familiar, into lives and landscapes larger than our own, then returns us with a deeper understanding of what we left behind.

Odysseus wants the world to know his name, but what he wants most is to cross the final stretch of sea and see Ithaca again. The horizon may call us away, but it is the homecoming that makes an Odyssey.

Christopher Nolan is bringing Homer’s epic back to the screen. Follow Greece’s wine-dark sea through the Peloponnese, Crete, Spetses, Corfu, and Ithaca, and begin planning an Odyssey of your own.