Where to Go in Greece If 'The Odyssey' Is on Your Mind

Greeks will tell you that Homer’s epic tale with its themes of hospitality, loyalty, feasting, and homecoming is still a true reflection of Greek culture today. Having lived in Megalo Nisi (the big island) of Crete for more than 15 years (and speaking the language), I’ve come to experience this firsthand. Like the story of Nausicaa, who finds the shipwrecked Odysseus and feeds and guides him, I can’t count how many times my neighbors have left bags of grapes and bunches of vlita (wild greens) on my doorstep, or helped me out when my old jeep has broken down (again). Homer’s obsession with nostos—homecoming—is seen here every Easter when families return from the cities or overseas to be with their loved ones—and leave reluctantly, bearing gifts of raki made in a local still, yiayia’s kalitsounia pastries and other home-made souvenirs. As for the trauma of war and the acquisition of resilience through hardship, all of these themes are familiar to modern Greeks whose parents or grandparents lived through the tragic population exchange in 1922, the civil war after WW2 and the succeeding poverty that forced more than a million of the country’s inhabitants to emigrate i