A Greek Odyssey with Bettany Hughes

- Season 1

(2020)

In episode one, Bettany begins her journey by exploring a graveyard of ancient shipwrecks in the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, then enjoys the tradition of a warm welcome on the island of Chios.

Bettany takes a predawn trip to Delos, an island in ancient times that no one was permitted to live or die there. Next, she sets sail for Ikaria which takes its name from the mythical Icarius.

Bettany Hughes ticks off three more Aegean islands as she follows Greek hero Odysseus home to Ithaca after the Trojan war. First stop is Santorini, then it's on to the wine-loving island of Naxos, sacred to god Dionysus, before her final stop at Sifnos.

Bettany makes it to Crete, just before a storm does. A trip to Knossos reveals the whole story of the Minotaur.

Bettany arrives in the Peloponnese, a peninsula that's home to some of ancient Greece's most legendary kings and vicious warriors.

Throughout his journey, Odysseus was harassed by the god Poseidon, who makes his presence felt in the modern day, late at night on Ithaca. It's a fitting end to a series in which Bettany Hughes has sought to make Greek myths relevant to our own human condition.