At the last
moment, because of Cipride and of an unexpected
engagement of our daughter, who was supposed to take care of her during
our absence, my wife and I had given up the previously planned travel to
Creta and had chosen a nearer destination, always in Greece, but more compatible
with the poor adaptability of our kitten to travel by car.
Due
to the circumstances, I thought that a reasonable solution would be to
head to the coast between Igoumenitsa (the port of continental Greece nearer
to Italy) and Préveza, because previously I had enjoyed the place
when I had crossed it on my way to Leukas island.
Once I had decided the destination
and collected as much documentation as I could in my bookshelf (basically
the Europe Atlas by Touring Club Italiano (T.C.I.), the tourist guide of
Greece by T.C.I. and by Michelin), I began studying the travel route and
it was then that my eyes fell on the name of the river which flows into
the sea not far from Ammoudia (a small town, half way between Igoumenitsa
and Preveza):
"Ahèrondas",
name that sounds very close to
Acheron, the hell river well described by Homer, Virgil and Dante.
A confirmation of the interpretation
came soon after consulting the guides from which I learnt that the area
behind Ammoudia is really crossed by the Acheron river and by Cocytus,
the other well known hell river.
I had always believed that
the above mentioned rivers belonged to a myth, and ignored, not only are
they a part of a precise geographic reality of Epirus, but that archaeological
excavation had even pointed out that the myth of Ulysses' descent into
the Hades took, as a starting point, the presence of an oracle in the area
since prehistoric times. Such discovery intrigued me much because, on the
one hand, my travel to Greece allowed me to resume a study path initiated
at the time of high school, on the other hand, the visit to the oracle
permitted me to dwell on a few unsolved existential points of my life.
We learn from Odyssey that
Ulysses, at a certain point of his wandering, is
informed by Circe, the sorceress, that his fate would be decided only
with the descent into the Hades where he could meet and consult Teiresias,
the Teban prophet. As for me, following a parallel path, I could, in all
modesty, with my journey to Greece, reflect on my life.
It was with this mood and intentions
that I started on the journey I will illustrate in the following pages.
