Repacking for Greece: A Mediterranean Odyssey by Sally Jane Smith

Title: Repacking for Greece: A Mediterranean Odyssey

Author: Sally Jane Smith

Genre: Travel memoir

Publisher: Journeys in Pages

Published: 20^th April 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 240

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: When a long-forgotten, apartheid-era arrest record derails Sally’s plans for a Canadian family holiday, she packs her mum’s 1978 travel diary and sets out solo for Greece instead.

As she journeys to the landmarks her mother once visited — and discovers many more — Sally immerses us in Greece’s awe-inspiring landscapes and fascinating heritage sites. She delights in absorbing the country’s rich history and connecting the dots between legend, location and contemporary literature.

Insightful, intelligent and with an infectious sense of wonder, Sally embraces a gentler approach to travel: facing her fears, abandoning old anxieties, and finding joy in the simple pleasures of her own Greek odyssey.

The second release in the ‘Packing for Greece’ series travels to Athens and Delphi on the mainland; Nafplio, Mycenae, Epidavros and Methana on the Peloponnese Peninsula; and the islands of Hydra, Aegina, Poros, Kefalonia and Corfu (with a side trip to Albania).

~*~

Eighteen months after her first Greek sojourn, Sally planned to head over to Canada to visit family – yet an arrest record from apartheid era South Africa that had been long-forgotten put a stop to that. This led Sally to setting off to Greece once again – guided by her mother’s 1978 travel diary. And during this journey, in book two of the series she is writing about her travels in Greece and the Mediterranean region – and the first two books were written about trips Sally took prior to COVID, and the second one looks to be based on post-COVID trip.

During this journey throughout more of Greece’s landscapes, monuments, ruins, and heritage sites as she explores its culture and history, Sally is guided by My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, and Sulari Gentill’s fabulous Hero Trilogy, a retelling of the Odyssey and its surrounding myths. It is these stories that bring Greece to life, that shows Sally what she can discover in Greece. Her journey tales her through the places in these books, which create an evocative past and present, and having read the Hero trilogy myself, I shared Sally’s excitement seeing the sites that the characters visited.

Another book that was a sort of guide to Sally, and that in a way, acts as a backbone to this book, at least in the sense of travelling, is The Odyssey by Homer, an ancient text that whose stories, along with the other books already mentioned, guide her around Athens, Delphi, Corfu, Albania, Kefalonia, Ithaca, Nafplio, Myceanae, Epidavros, Poros, Hydra and Methana, enriching her Greek Odyssey through the stories, myths, history and people. During this trip, Sally’s confidence had grown, which shines through the story as she describes how this experience was slightly different – because she was able to use knowledge from her first journey to make things a little bit easier, or at least run a little bit more smoothly. These places are ancient, filled with the mythical figures so well-known by many, like Heracles and Odysseus, Theseus and the Minotaur, and many others. Connections that astute readers – or those who are familiar with these myths will make and appreciate with what they already know. It makes the book richer and deeply invigorating for those with this knowledge.

There are still surprises as she explores new places, meets new people and connects with family back in Australia and South Africa, and it is her past experiences in South Africa and Sri Lanka that come back in this book – memories of the accident in Sri Lanka, recognising the different ways of living across the world, and seeing that some people have an easier way of living than others, for a range of reasons that she now recognises and sees how the luck of being born a certain way in apartheid South Africa helped her in direct and indirect ways, and ways that she didn’t realise at first. And it is all these experiences that come together in this book to make the story work, to show Sally’s growth and understanding amidst a world of history and myths, a world where heroes and gods live alongside humans and buildings, making the history and geography of Greece a rich tapestry of myth and history that has evolved over thousands of years. Something that stands out more when you recognise places from reading and studying history and mythology.

The second book in the Packing for Greece series is filled with a zest for life, wanderlust, and an excitement for history and mythology that seems to shine off the page, and invites the reader to go to Greece, or to at least share in Sally’s wonderful journey.