PARADISE FOUND

A dreamscape of shimmering seas and secret bays, the island of Ithaca was everything Victoria Harper hoped for and more

- Victoria Harper

If the idea of a holiday sounds simple, the logistics rarely are, and last summer’s break came with its own set of challenges. After 17 years as a family of four, the time had come to go away as a threesome, as our eldest son, now 20, understandably preferred to holiday with friends instead.

The first challenge was finding a destination that satisfied my desire to “fly and flop”, my 17-year-old son’s need for “somewhere I won’t be bored”, and a husband’s craving for “stuff to do”. The only thing we could all agree on was “somewhere hot”.

By May, we’d stopped arguing and settled on Greece. While we all loved the mainland, we had never visited the islands. I’d spent years dreaming of their romance: Leonard Cohen’s Hydra, the filmic backdrop of the white-washed Santorini, the hotcoolness of Mykonos. What about Paxos, Naxos, Paros, or even Antiparos? The Corfu of The Durrells? The Skiathos of Mamma Mia?

Then came challenge two: booking. By the end of May, nearly every popular destination was fully booked.

As panic set in, I turned to Simpson, a Greek travel specialist, who suggested Ithaca. This small, classic Greek island might underplay its hand in the “best of” lists, but has a starring role in Homer’s Odyssey as the birthplace of hero Odysseus and to where he returns after the Trojan war.

There were no villas with pools available, but there was an apartment overlooking the beautiful bay of Kioni. Who needs a pool when you have the Ionian Sea? It was perfect.

Getting there: an odyssey