It takes absolutely no imagination to envisage Lord Nestor of Gerênia gabbing with Odysseus’s visiting son at his breezy two-story hilltop palace about 17 kilometers north of the picturesque, pleasant and protected port of Pylos in the Peloponnese.

The beckoning palace ruins, aged and gnarled olive trees and spectacular view over the distant Bay of Navarino and Sphakteria Island make this a perfect venue (http://maps.google.com/mapsf=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=37.02687,21.69497&ll=37.02687,21.69497&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1) for Telémakhos to inquire about what happened to his dad in the aftermath of the Trojan War.

Excavated in 1952, Nestor’s place in the Englianos hills came immediately alive when The Idiot reached it this afternoon. All of the characters in Homer’s drama were still on the scene as the Idiot visited two archive rooms, the palace guard HQ, the bathroom, the guest rooms, the waiting room, the court, the observation tower, the pantry, the oil and wine storage facilities, the fresco-decorated halls, the queen’s apartments and the portico.

The Idiot swears he saw a shadow of Telémakhos, who followed the goddess Athena to the palace after his ship arrived from Ithaca, submerged in the bathtub.

Telémakhos bathed here.

The Idiot saw another shadow of Telémakhos stroll past two sentries into the waiting room before being presented to Lord Nestor, whose throne was just to the right of the hearth.

Telémakhos waited here.

Telémakhos met Lord Nestor at his throne.

There are additional palace treasures – including discoveries from Mycenean tholos tombs, ritual vases, pounds of gold jewelry, amphorae, arrowheads, kylikes, kraters, friezes, tripod vessels, chimney pipes, loom weights and “casual finds” — at the compact but edifying Archeological Museum in the nearby town of Chora.

Piece of the palace frieze puzzle.

A pithos that’s everything it’s cracked up to be.

Incidentally, archeologists have determined that this is definitely Lord Nestor’s actual palace and have just discovered a surviving photograph of what it looked like back in the day.

Lord Nestor's Palace 2,887 years ago.

So don’t be fooled by the pretentious castle on the seaside known as the Faux Nestor Palace.

The Idiot MedTrekked past it ten kilometers south of Kiparissia yesterday and, after an hour-long investigation, determined that it definitely did not belong to Lord Nestor. And it was also way too surreal to belong to Lord Disney.

Telémakhos did not sleep here.

Text and Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure

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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."