“All men have need of the gods,” Homer wrote in “The Odyssey,” the world’s first travel narrative that inspired my humble walking adventure around the Mediterranean Sea.

One delightful aspect of MedTrekking over 7,000 kilometers is my frequent meetings with gods, goddesses, sea nymphs, warriors, villains, heroes, sorceresses and other supernatural, semi-supernatural and merely mortal beings.

I frequently encounter Athena, Odysseus’ spear-carrying patron goddess who was considered one of the most beautiful of the Greek gods. Beauty wasn’t everything, of course. Zeus’s daughter often carried an owl as her companion and was/is the multitasking guardian goddess of wisdom, warfare, arts and crafts.

I met Athena in front of a temple named after her in Paestum, Italy.

I ran into her again on the Greek island of Corfu at a villa dedicated to Achilles.

For someone at least a few thousand years old Athena, who usually gives me one of her knowing owlish winks, is looking pretty good.

My favorite mortal is, of course, Odysseus. He’s appeared to me in various guises, including once as a beggar and another time as a ferryman. And there are numerous depictions of him along the Mediterranean seashore.

Odysseus, aka Ulysses, in a museum in Sperlonga, Italy.

Odysseus on his home island of Ithaca.

Odysseus in a secret location in Calabria, Italy.

Some others I’ve chatted with on my MedTrek include:

Homer on the Greek island of Corfu.

One of the sirens just off Italy’s Amalfi Coast.

Hercules in the Palazzo Reale in Palermo, Sicily.

Sappho on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Scylla in Scilla, Italy.

The pigeons’ favorite in Noto, Sicily.

The Cyclops called Polyphemus in Sperlonga, Italy.

Two of the four rivers in Rome’s Piazza Navona.

Text: Joel Stratte-McClure and Judy Barnett (1)

Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure, Judy Barnett (1 – Sperlonga, Italy) and Luke Stratte-McClure (1 – Rome, Italy)

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."