Spring 1990 brought us to the small island of Ithaca, Greece, in recent times known for little but its sheer beauty, but in literature famed for its king and hero Odysseus who, Homer tells us, was the brains behind the winning wooden-horse idea that ended the ancient war of Troy. Odysseus then spent 10 adventure-filled years roaming the Mediterranean before returning to Ithaca, and his ever-faithful Penelope.
Our odyssey to Ithaca was planned to take us from Australia to spend two years building a family holiday house on the island of our ancestors. Ah, the plans of mice and men! It’s as if Ithaca has a peculiar hold over its inhabitants. The family ‘holiday’ house took 10 years to build and has become our permanent home. With our original plans more than slightly skewed, providing others with family holidays in Greece is now our passion, but first...
Back to the beginning of our own supposed two-year family holiday in Greece when wandering thoughts changed our lives. A narrow, overgrown pathway had become the favoured adventure walk for our two small children, and the abandoned citrus orchard at the path’s end their favoured destination. They would run ahead of us, down a small road, onto the pathway, pushing past the enormous oleanders and agaves which grew wantonly over the ever narrowing path. Through a clearing under olive trees, behind a ruined stone house, over a dilapidated stone wall and into the orchard. The favourite tree, laden with sweet oranges, was long forgotten by its owners, but now had daily visitors and admirers to keep it company.
The tree grew amongst many on a steep hillside. Obviously once lovingly created, the orchard had an intricate system of irrigation. We discovered that an open topped stone water tank was filled from a underground spring. The tank’s overflow wound its way down through the orchard in open channels formed with cut stone, from one tank to the next, with branches watering the entire orchard, forming an automatic system which had kept working despite the eons which had passed since owners last tended the orchard. Once much-loved, now it felt a little sad, but still strikingly beautiful.
Intriguingly, one water channel found its way under a fence to a flat terrace behind the stone ruin, and at the end of this one lonely channel, hidden by tangled blackberry vines, were the shattered remains of a large ceramic urn.
As the children happily consumed their daily quota of oranges, using a large stone as our seat, admiring the panoramic sea view below kept us endlessly occupied. The bay displayed an enormous variety of blues and turquoises, different each day. Its backdrop was a long headland, bounded by high limestone cliffs with fingers of Mediterranean maquis tumbling down the ravines towards the shore, marking out small beaches below the cliffs. The orchard became our resting and dreaming place. We longed to recreate it.
Little wonder at our surprise 18 months later when we were told that the stone ruin next to the orchard was the birthplace of my father-in-law. The mysterious single water channel was the only source of water for the 16 people who had once occupied the small four room house with its dirt floor, outdoor oven and outdoor sleeping ‘room’ for the boys of the family during the warmer months. The house had been home for the family since 1860 when 18-year-old, newly-married great-great-grandfather brought his 16 year-old wife to the valley. The broken ceramic water urn was at the end of the family’s vegetable garden, providing both garden water and the place where the women washed clothes.
Sixteen people with 1 acre of ground to farm meant everyone was hungry and so in late 1895 Great-great-grandfather took himself on a sailing ship to join relatives in Australia. As he made good, slowly his family joined him to become one family of many Ithacan families who made new lives for themselves in Australia.
Perhaps it was that tranquil and beautiful view combined with our joy in small children’s excitement, perhaps the oranges contained magic dreaming potion, perhaps it was imagining the lives of those severe-faced sepia portraits in old photo albums - most likely all of these and more, but seeds of imaginings, lots of ‘what if’s’ and ‘we could’s’ and twenty years later our lives and our now-adult children’s lives are irrevocably changed to revolve around providing others with family holidays in this quiet valley above the sea of Ithaca, Greece.
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