August 27 – Ithaki, Greece

The little island of Ithaki (Ithaca) is the reported home of Odysseus of The Odyssey fame.  The island is pretty small and apparently they don’t get a lot of tourists.  However, they have plans…they recently did a huge expansion of the pier in order to accommodate the large cruise ships.  We were the only ship in port. 

The drive was pretty…the little town of Vathi faces the waterfront and there were many seaside cafes.  

The drive took us along the beautiful coastline and up into the mountains. 

Water and mountain views on our drive up the mountain.

Sea Cloud from our mountain drive.

Our first stop was the Panagia Kathariotissa Monastery…

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More Panagia Kathariotis Monastery 
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and its small Greek Orthodox Church.

A Praying Mantis

We also walked up to a nearby lookout where there were good views of the island and sea at a distance.

Nearby goats.

Then we drove to the village of Stavos. 

They had a lovely small, Greek Orthodox Church. 

Then we wandered over to a nearby café that served very good baklava…a favorite dessert. 

A map of the travels of Ulysses.

 

Sign on our bus.

We were back on board for lunch.

In the afternoon we had our Sea Cloud photo safari.  They put some zodiacs in the water and took small groups out to circle the ship so that we could get great photos from the water.