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Ithaca Island
Area: 96 sq km
Population: 4.000
 Ithaca is
close to Kefalonia, and is well known for being the island
home of the great Odysseus, hero of the Troian war. The small
and mountainous island is renowned for its coves. The main
town is Vathi, located on the island's east coast, is
small, and its white houses fan out in a mounting semi-circle
at one end of the bay. There are beaches at Kioni, south of
Frikes, and from here there is a road going to Loizos cave,
where traces of the worship of Artemis, Hera and Athena have
been found.
The Island
is mountainous, rising to c.2,650 ft (810 m) at Mt. Anoyi, and
has little arable land. The chief products are olive oil,
currants, and wine. The island is traditionally
celebrated as the home of Odysseus. Cyclopean walls and
remains of a Corinthian colony (c.8th cent. B.C.) have been
found. In 1953, Ithaki was devastated by tidal waves.
The island
is for all practical purposes divided in two, the North with
Stavros and the South with Vathi. The hills of both ends are
rather steep and rocky leaving only the valleys and some high
plateaus with tenable land . Today more than 40 years after a
devastating earthquake the infrastructure is quite modern of
which a small but effective hospital is an excellent example.
Ithaki divides into two halves. Mount Aetos, which joins north
with south, is barely half a mile in width at its narrowest
point. The highest peak on the island is Neritos at just over
800 meters.
The west coast is very rugged, with sheer
mountainside rising steeply from the sea for much of its
length. The east side is a little gentler, and its indented
coastline provides several natural harbors, which is where
Ithaca’s three main coastal villages: Frikes, Kioni and
Vathi. Frikes is the smallest of the three and delightfully
sleepy, with a lazy, very Greek air. Kioni, a few miles to the
south is the most conventionally pretty. Built around a wide
bay, it is a little larger than Frikes and has a beautiful
waterfront, backed by pastel-colored neo-classical houses.
 Vathi
is the capital, although, with a population of about 2,000
people, it is not large. Why it is called Vathi (which
means ‘deep’) is apparent when you see it, because it is
built along both sides of a very long, hiding the town from
the sea. Vathi has some lovely old buildings and a reasonable
choice of small shops, taverns and café-bars along its
expansive waterfront. There are some very good beaches dotted
around the peninsula to the east, and in season small
water-taxis will take you inexpensively. There is plenty of
speculation as to whether today’s Ithaki really was the
homeland of Odysseus, but little hard evidence to date. There
are, however, plenty of clues, and the islanders certainly
don’t need convincing. Nevertheless, certain descriptions
and places Homer mentions do seem to fit.
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