How a real-life journey through the mythical lands of the ‘Odyssey’ helped heal my heartbreak

From Stromboli to Marettimo and on to Favignana, Laura Coffey embarked on her own journey of wonder through the lesser-discovered Mediterranean islands, thought to be the setting of the epic Greek poem. And just like Homer’s hero, she too found a world of intrigue and colourful characters...

Isle of wonder: just off the coast of Sicily is an archipelago steeped in myths (Laura Coffey)

On the boat, I stared out to sea thinking about maps and getting lost, about imaginary islands and the places where geography and mythology collide. I was on my way to a mystical archipelago of islands just off Sicily, supposedly the real-life inspiration for the fantastical islands of the “Odyssey”.

I hadn’t planned to be chasing Odysseus around his island sea kingdoms and searching for mythical lands but my heart had been broken in various ways and I was sorely in need of grey-eyed, gold-shod Athena, Aeolus who rules the winds and all of the trickster gods, to be spun into their drama. To become enchanted.

Like Odysseus, my journey stretched out far longer than I expected. And just like him, I met an eccentric cast list of characters on the way: a sex therapist, Naked Andrew, a 70-year-old enthusiastic nudist, and a Menorcan ornithologist.

The boat was headed to Stromboli, one of the Aeolian islands, about 60km north of Sicily. According to the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, this was the home of Aeolus, the guardian of the winds. The island has one of the most active volcanoes in the world. So reliably explosive that it’s been called the lighthouse of the Mediterranean.

The hike up takes about six hours. I started walking as the day cooled into the afternoon, through olive trees and oleanders on the lower slopes, watching as the sunset extruded across the horizon, rich orange shifting to faintest pink. The scent of jasmine perfumed the air and there was quiet reverence inside me as I walked.

A spinning inwards and a stilling, my eyes caught on all the trees and flowers and the dance of the sea and the light falling, as I climbed higher and afternoon turned to night. Stromboli’s orange explosions against the starry night felt magical. There was a particular energy on this island that made me feel free and easy. It seemed exactly like a place a god would choose to live.

I journeyed on to Sicily, supposedly the land of the sun god Helius. In the story, Odysseus’s starving crew barbeque the god’s sacred white cattle and Helius is outraged. He incites Zeus to throw thunderbolts at the ship to kill the crew until (in a twist no one saw coming) only Odysseus is left, pacing the deck in a tizz. Helius favours this place so much that it’s one of the sunniest islands in the Med and it became one of my favourites too.

Samuel Butler, a Victorian novelist, had a controversial take, believing he’d discovered what others had missed: Ithaca was not in Greece, and Homer had been misgendered.

To him, it was blindingly obvious that the “Odyssey” was the work of a “brilliant, high-spirited woman” and that when this “poetess” wrote about Ithaca (Odysseus’s home island – the place he longed to get back to), she was picturing the island of Marettimo.

Menorca’s kingfisher-coloured coastline is a breeze to walk around (Laura Coffey)

This belief, the lack of any actual evidence for it, or possibly the arrogant terms in which it was expressed, greatly annoyed his contemporaries. The more I looked, the more competing theories I found. Because, of course, it’s impossible to truly map the imaginary onto the real. Samuel’s bonkers ideas were good enough for me. I travelled along to the western coast of Sicily to see Ithaca for myself.

Marettimo is the westernmost of the Egadi islands, 45km off the western coast of Sicily. It translates as “sea thyme” and the island’s namesake scented the air when I arrived. This remote island has a rugged vibe, a very small population, and no cars: everything is too vertical.

I hiked from the scruffy village over to Punta Troia, a castle on the northern shore set on a peninsula which curls out like a dragon’s tail, thinking about Ithaca and the idea of home, and how we spend our lives moving between homecoming and adventure.

Favignana, another island in the Egadi archipelago, is thought to be the “island full of wonders” where Odysseus and his men rested in between adventures. I too, rested here a while and explored its wonders before resuming my quest.

Fishing boats at Favignana Harbour (thought to be the ‘island full of wonders’ in the ‘Odyssey’) (Laura Coffey)

Aristid Vučetić, who lived in Dubrovnik, upset the apple cart when he suggested that the location for Odysseus’s journey was the Adriatic, not the Aegean. He thought the Croatian island of Mljet could be Calypso’s island. I tried to reach it but like Odysseus, I was trapped by storms.

In my case, I was stuck on nearby Korčula, where I met Mona the sex therapist. We decided to do a moon ritual one stormy night, but weren’t quite sure how, neither of us being conversant in moon rituals.

We downloaded instructions from the internet and tried our best to follow them. Her boyfriend bit his lip trying not to laugh at us as we lit candles and recited incantations. In the end, I never made it to Calypso’s island, but that’s the thing about odysseys, you don’t always get to decide where you go. It’s down to fate and the gods.

Mauricio Obregón, a 20th-century historian and university professor, thought the island of the one-eyed cyclops could be one of the Balearic islands. And so on I went to Menorca.

It was deep mid-winter when I arrived but I’d been swimming throughout my journey and went cold water swimming every day,  like one of those annoying self-care cliches. This was how I met Naked Andrew. He showed up one day at my favourite cove, took all his clothes off, and plunged into the water. He was 70, an enthusiastic nudist, and British to the point of satire.

Feeling blue: Favignana’s famous Cala Rossa beach (Laura Coffey)

He’d attended boarding school, his father called him “Boy” even as a grown man, and he used to work in the City. We became unlikely swimming buddies and each day he’d taunt me for being “an inadequate alpha female” as I shivered my way into the water slowly while he bounded in enthusiastically.

Menorca is full of birds because it’s bang on their migration paths to Africa. I booked a walking tour with Javier, an ornithologist who taught me all their names and untangled birdsong into individual melodies for me, ascribing singers to particular notes. The “Odyssey” is also full of birds: the goddess Athena, who helps Odysseus, turns into an owl. Ino, the white goddess, comes to him in the form of a gull to save him from a terrible storm.

As I cycled around this island, winter sea swimming and looking out for the birds, I started to feel happy again, more like myself. But suddenly my father became extremely unwell and my odyssey was abruptly halted. I flew to him. I made it in time. Then he died.

Grief is a foreign country and my travels continued for a long while through this strange and desolate land.

Eventually, I found my way back to my enchanted islands and started to write about them. Just like my father had asked me to.

‘Enchanted Islands: Travels through Myth & Magic, Love & Loss’ by Laura Coffey is available now