Travel writer Laura Coffey was so inspired by Homer's 3,000-year-old poem that it sparked a fascination with ancient Greek myths and legends. She set off on her own epic adventure to discover the modern destinations behind The Odyssey, the real places where myths meet geography.
T
The sky was the brightest of winter blues above the yellow town of Mahón, in Menorca. All the buildings were painted shades of citrus and lemon, ochre and mustard and every hue in between. Palm trees rattled in the wind and the road swept down the hill towards the deep port where white yachts waited, in their superior, gleaming way, for summer.
Along the central shopping avenue orange trees were still bursting with fruit and sparrows gathered on their branches at dusk to scream the day's news at each other, their volume increasing as the light fell, until at twilight the chatter crescendoed so loudly you had to raise your voice to be heard over it. After the bone cold of icy Croatia, where I had been for a month, it felt tropical here by comparison, the air warmer and softer. I had won an extra hour of light, the days stretched open in front of me again, there was sunshine optimism spinning through these yellow streets.
I sat high on the green terrace of Cafe Nou overlooking the orange trees with their sparrows, eating a tostada con tomate and reading about Mauricio Obregón. He was a 20th-Century historian and university professor who spent a lot of his time retracing ancient voyages. He believed that the island of the Cyclops could be one of the Balearic Islands – so the land where one-eyed monsters used to roam might be here, on Menorca.
In the story, Poseidon has an affair with a sea-nymph who immediately gets pregnant – no god ever has issues with sperm count – and their child grows up to become the strongest of all the Cyclopes and lives a quiet life on an island as a shepherd.
Mysterious T-shaped structures have given rise to legends about giants living on the island (Credit: Getty Images)
After a narrow escape from the lures of psychedelic plant medicine in the land of the Lotus Eaters, and after barbecuing goats on the "island full of wonders", Odysseus and 12 of his men set out on an expedition to find the Cyclops.
Where to find Odyssey inspiration in Menorca:
The prehistoric village of Torre d'en Galmés: Menorca has one of the highest concentration of prehistoric sites in the world, and has many standing stones. This has given rise to legends that once upon a time the island was inhabited by giants. You can imagine the one-eyed Cyclops roaming around at this ancient archaeological site.
Bird watching: Birds are the messengers of the gods in The Odyssey and Menorca is an excellent place for bird watching due to its location on the migration path to Africa.
Beaches fit for a Greek goddess: Cala Mijana and Cala Mijtaneta are wild beaches particularly beloved by Menorcans.
They break into his cave, wait for the monster to come home and, when he does, in a yet another classic example of poor judgement, Odysseus demands a gift, per the guest-code protocol. The Cyclops, unsurprisingly, declines to give a present to the home intruders, traps them and snacks on some of the crew, in between nipping out to graze his sheep. Odysseus, wily as ever, forms a plan, gets the monster blind drunk, shoves a sharpened stick into his eye and manages to escape with the remainder of the uneaten crew.
Once they're safely back on the ship he arrogantly taunts the blinded giant. Infuriated, the monster chucks an enormous rock at the ship, but misses, obviously, since he can't see. Enraged, the Cyclops turns to daddy for help and asks him to prevent Odysseus from getting back home.
In response, "Lord Poesidon rages, unrelenting". A vengeful god now has a personal vendetta. Smart move, Odysseus.
I cycled around the island and, free again, found rocky coves to swim in. On my rides I saw birds everywhere, moving through the air like musical notes, folding their wings mid-flight to drop and bounce. White, cloud-high birds flew in circles above me as I biked to the sea, black and white birds with long tails hopped along the lanes, flying up just in time as I spun past. Tiny birds moved between the low branches of olive trees, heads cocked, eyes blinking, regarding each other, and me. I became entranced, obsessive, almost. This was a language I wanted to learn.
The 185km Camí de Cavalls coastal path is an excellent way to explore the island (Credit: Getty Images)
Javier, a Menorcan ornithologist, became my translator. I'd booked a bird walking tour but there was no one else on it, just me. Javier was tall with dark hair and a shy smile, he wore serious hiking trousers, a rucksack with a proper chest fastening, had two pairs of binoculars looped around his neck, and carried a telescope over his shoulder.
More like this:
• Menorca's mysterious tables for giants
• The greatest tale ever told?
• The ingenious wines birthed from black volcanic craters
Happiness came down to this: a bicycle, low-walled narrow country lanes to slow-cycle down, a turquoise sea cradled by a rocky cove, a bright day, and a notebook so I could write down the new things I'd learned to see. Black redstarts, a pair of kestrels, speckled wood butterflies, a dormouse rustling up a tree, a poison-caterpillar nest, a red kite flashing rust through the air. And try to capture something about the smell of the heat inside the sandy pinewoods, or the shape of the sculptures of the sea, which bleached driftwood sand-coloured before arranging it on winter beaches with a curator's eye.
Here I was in constant motion, cycling to the sea, finding donkeys in small green fields, watching the birds. I was becoming more animal, more feathered, more creature.
This story is an excerpt from Enchanted Islands: Travels through Myth & Magic, Love & Loss by Laura Coffey (Summersdale)
--
If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week.
For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.