Mahinda’s Little World

Wake up, late, and join the others in Dimitri’s. This time I get some breakfast, but not until some time after the others. For some reason, I’m actually invisible to Greek waiters and waitresses.

First up, James, who apologises for the previous day’s storm and tells us that it caught just about everyone by surprise. Today’s forecast wasn’t any more reliable…and he’d therefore made the decision not to take the flotilla out sailing.

Fair enough.

It looked a nice enough day, albeit a bit cloudy, so we retired to the Knight Odyssey, consulted Dave’s Lonely Planet guide (”Corfu and the Ionians”), and decided that we’d try to find the Nymph’s Cave - fairly close to Vathi, this is supposedly where Odysseus stashed all his treasure when he returned home.

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

For those who don’t know, Odysseus (aka Ulysses, which is the Latin version) is the hero of Homer’s book, The Odyssey. This is a bit more original a name that it sounds, as our word ‘odyssey’ is derived from the book title, which is in turn derived from the name of its main character.

The Odyssey is itself the sequel to The Iliad, which is about the seige of Troy. Odysseus was on the winning (Greek) side, and it was actually him who came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse - mind you, that was in The Aeneid, which was written by Virgil (in Latin rather than Greek), and occurs between the Iliad and Odyssey. Allegedly.

The full text of the Iliad and Odyssey (well, English translations thereof) is available on t’interweb. If you don’t want to wade through reams of convoluted text, there’s a handy summary here, and even a kiddies’ version.

As well as the Trojan Horse and the likes of Achilles, Hector, and (of course) the rather good-looking Helen, Homer’s texts have given us the Sirens, Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, and much more besides.

Me, I’m about three (3) pages into the Iliad, and have been for about four years. A light read before bed, it is not.

Anyway, but I digress. Unusual, that…

Ithaki, the island wot we were on, is widely believed to be the Ithaca of Odysseus, i.e. the seat of his kingdom. This isn’t quite as straightforward as the names might suggest, though, and there’s been much conjecture over the years, with Lefkada and Kefalonia very keen to bag a share of the Homeric legend. The geographical/geological contradictions within the Odyssey don’t help, apparently.

So many archeologists, local and otherwise, have spent years wandering around the Ionian islands, dog-eared copy the The Odyssey in hand. Going by personal evidence, I can think of many worse places in which to spend years wandering.

To round things off, while being remarkably topical, a British archeologist now believes that he’s finally found the definitive location of Homer’s Ithaca. There’s even a book about it.

Walking in Sunshine

Right. That’s quite enough classical literature for this blog. I don’t really want to sound like a complete ponce.

The Cave of the Nymphs, apparently, was a short distance out of Vathi, on the road leading north of the town. So off we headed.

As we went through Vathi, we had to shelter in doorways a couple of times, due to some very short but very heavy showers. Not sailing was probably a good idea. Then we were out of town, and the road went up. And then up some more.

We got some absolutely lovely views, in the glorious sunshine. Unfortunately, the Cave of the Nymphs wasn’t one of them.

I now know (thank you, Google!) that the cave is about 3km from Vathi. We were on the right road, but we turned back too soon. Oh well.

Instead, we went down to a lovely little beach, with the usual clear water and olive trees. Unfortunately, the bar wasn’t open, so we had to content ourselves with water to accompany our lunch. We lazed for a while, then Tom, Amy, Dave and I headed back, leaving Ian and Nancy to do coupley things. Probably not in the company of the topless girl sunbathing 50 yards up the beach, I hope.

Incidentally, it turned out to be a pretty damn good day for sailing. Bugger!

Fruit of the Dead

On the way out of Vathi, I spied a pomegranate tree by the side of the road. On the way back in, a couple of hours later, I suddenly remembered the tree. “Damn, must have missed it” thought I, before looking around and realising that I was all of 20 yards from it. On the basis that it was obviously fated, I managed to grab a single fruit, which looked at least half ripe.

The Ancient Greeks believed the pomegranate to be the food of the dead. Rather than find a dry factual webpage for your delectation, I’ve found a lovely blog entry about it. Slightly more bizarre is Forming the Pomegranate…apparently, there are only three ways to eat pomegranates - naked, in the rain, or both. I may try the second option one day.

When we got back to the boat, I opened up the pomegranate and shared it round. I was amazed that most of the group had never tasted it before. The seeds from the redder half were lovely and sweet, the others a bit more sour but still very juicy. Nice. General opinion was that it was surprisingly tasty…at least, that’s what they told me at the time.

Later that evening…

We went back into Vathi for dinner. On the recommendation of one of the other boats, we found O Nikos, a little taverna sited on a street corner just as the quayside tourist traps gave way to the local backstreets.

A nice meal ensued, with the usual slightly ropey house wine. It was a bit disconcerting having people on scooters whizzing past only inches from my back, mind. It seemed as though the entire flotilla turned up - the Americans were there, as were Paul and Alison, and (of course) John and Sheena. Think the foursome from the Solent also made an appearance, as did the lead crew a bit later.

True to form, John managed to almost burn the place down. I was collared by him to take a photo of him with the chef and head waiter. So I did. Then he asked if I could take another one, just to make sure. At this point, the completely untended grill decided to burst into flame…which looked nice on the photo.

The bill, when we finally received it (as mentioned, I am in fact invisible to Greek restauranteurs), was pretty damn small - much more what I’d expected, than the prices we’d gotten used to paying in the tavernas at which we’d moored up. Think it worked out to something like €10 each - bargain!

Wandered back, stopping off for a drink at Mylos, a very lively bar that did a fine line in cocktails. It also featured a (very good) barman sporting quite possibly the finest monobrow I’ve ever seen.

I’m never having grappa again. It really is not nice stuff.