What All These Ithacas Mean

Well, what is there to say at this stage of the trip, having now spent just over a week or so in Greece with an incomparable host and superbly authentic tour of this fabulous and ancient place. From the Greek market in the village Saturday morning, to the morning cheese pies, the filling greek salads, and the beach-front Albanian-run canteen that serves up tasty fried sardines... to the drive into the mountains of Peloponisos, on a road surely designed by a goat, where we stopped to help an old turtle cross the road... to the nightly sunsets that cannot be hurried. And above all the multitude of stories and laughs exchanged into the night. A wonderful, wonderful few days out of the 180 or so to be spent on this road.

If "Song of the Open Road" ranks as my favourite poem, then C.P. Cavafy's "Ithaca" is a close second. Another poem for the traveler, it summarizes - beautifully and simply - that age-old maxim that it is the journey and not the destination that is to be treasured. Pray that the road is long. Years ago, in first reading the words, I knew someday I would need to land in Ithaca for myself. So it was with some sense of enjoyment that I sat on Monday on a ferry returning to the mainland from the isle of Zakynthos, where I had passed a great day on a cruise around the perimeter that included a stop at majestically beautiful Smuggler's Cove. Amidst the glorious sunset (and a few cans of Heineken) there only a few kilometers north in the mist surely lay that famous island of Ulysses fame. I look forward to returning to it someday.

As I look forward to returning to Marathia. For I am now off to pick up an olive tree to plant in the yard. "You will be back here, I think," Nick says. I'd say he's right; or to use his expression: "no ifs, no buts".