I am not sure why we, or to be honest I, put off for so long an overseas vacation.
It may have been fear of flying. Our wider family record is not too good with one aircrash fatality and our own first hand witnessing of a crew-less Tornado fighter bomber as it crossed the road at windscreen level in front of us and plopped noiselessly into the North Sea. Equally it may have been down to cost, logistics, shyness, in anticipation of language difficulties or any one of many other excuses.
Putting all illogical feelings aside ( well, just me again) It was a great experience on that inaugural holiday on Kefalonia in the Western Greek islands.
The five of us became immersed in the lifestyle and culture or as much as we could on our budget and in a very tiny Hyundai hire car. Travelling at snails pace because of unfamiliar and , frankly, extremely dangerous roads- some with a precipitous drop over cliffs with no safety barriers, we did see almost the whole of that Ionian Island.
One magical village with picturesque harbour overlooked a crystal blue, narrow strait of water towards Ithaca, the home in Greek Mythology of Odysseus and his son Telemachus.
This is a very brief synopsis of the life and times of Telemachus sourced from The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology:
The son of Odysseus and Penelope (Hom. Od. i. 216). He was still an infant at the time when his father went to Troy, and in his absence of nearly twenty years he grew up to manhood. After the gods in council had determined that Odysseus should return home from the island of Ogygia, Athena, assuming the appearance of Mentes, king of the Taphians, went to Ithaca, and advised Telemachus to eject the troublesome suitors of his mother from his house, and to go to Pylos and Sparta, to gather information concerning his father. Telemachus followed the advice, but the suitors refused to quit his house; and Athena, in the form of Mentes, accompanied Telemachus to Pylos. There they were hospitably received by Nestor, who also sent his own son to conduct Telemachus to Sparta. Menelaus again kindly received him, and communicated to him the prophecy of Proteus concerning Odysseus (Hom. Od. i.–iv.). From Sparta Telemachus returned home; and on his arrival there, he found his father, with the swineherd Eumaeus. But as Athena had metamorphosed him into a beggar, Telemachus did not recognise his father until the latter disclosed to him who he was. Father and son now agreed to punish the suitors; and when they were slain or dispersed, Telemachus accompanied his father to the aged Laertes. (Hom. Od. xv.–xxiv.; comp. Odysseus.) In the post-Homeric traditions, we read that Palamedes, when endeavouring to persuade Odysseus to join the Greeks against Troy, and the latter feigned idiocy, placed the infant Telemachus before the plough with which Odysseus was ploughing (Hygin. Fab. 95; Serv. ad Aen. ii. 81; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 384; Aelian, V. H. xiii. 12.). According to some accounts, Telemachus became the father of Perseptolis either by Polycaste, the daughter of Nestor, or by Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1796; Dict. Cret. vi. 6.). Others relate that he was induced by Athena to marry Circe, and became by her the father of Latinus(Hygin. Fab. 127; comp. Telegonus), or that he married Cassiphone, a daughter of Circe, but in a quarrel with his mother-in-law he slew her, for which in his turn he was killed by Cassiphone (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 808.). He is also said to have had a daughter called Roma, who married Aeneas (Serv. ad Aen. i. 273.). One account states that Odysseus, in consequence of a prophecy that his son was dangerous to him, sent him away from Ithaca. Servius (ad Aen. x. 167) makes Telemachus the founder of the town of Clusium in Etruria.
I have always been fascinated by Greek Mythology, its characters, battles, fables and quests and so to be in the cradle of one of its main protagonists (well, from a distant view as the boat trip to Ithaca had just left) held me enthralled.
The Telemachus story stuck with me during that holiday as I imagined myself following in his forlorn footsteps as he searched for his absentee father in the knowledge of multiple suitors queueing up at home to woo his mother. He would certainly have cut a noble figure as opposed to my own demeanour in baggy shorts, replica football shirt and open toed sandals- well, perhaps we shared a common bit of attire in that latter item.
It was therefore fate that towards the last day of our fortnight we happened upon a pop up art gallery in the town of Argostoli on Kefalonia.
It may have just been an opportunity to escape the midday August heat without having to buy ice cream or iced coffees but there on display and for sale was a striking portrait of Telemachus by a local artist.
Now, we have usually made a point of purchasing a holiday memento or two on previous but UK only stays and this had resulted in cupboards and drawers stuffed full of fridge magnets, etched slates, crested spoons, ceramic plates, decorated pebbles and countless tea towels but stumbling out of the bright haze into the cool of the gallery gave us an opportunity to purchase a quality souvenir.
In terms of authenticity the artist lady was in attendance and so for fifty thousand drachma (although Greece was in the Euro Zone this did not become the currency until 2002) we acquired a wonderful picture of the local hero painted on wooden slats.
On that actual day in 2001 there were 544 Drachma to the UK pound but the work of art remains, to us , priceless.
Artist; Kristine Kefala Liodatou, Fragata San Gerasimos, Kefalonia, Greece.2001
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