Andalusia (Spain) is known «sea of olive trees» because the olive trees there cover what seems like an infinite amount of land in six of the eighth Andalusian provinces. However what stands out the most is the landscape in the province of Jaen.
There is also a «sea of olive trees» in Greece. These are on the Ionian Islands, which are bathed by the homonymous sea, and consist of seven larger islands and a large number of smaller islands including Corfu, Paxos, Kastos and Ithaca, among others.
Ithaca includes a group of cities characterized by paradisiacal beaches. In Vathi, the capital of the island, there are beaches nestled in very peculiar places that are surrounded by lush vegetation, crystal clear waters and olive trees close to the beach. This is how it is at Dexa Beach, which is two kilometers from Vathi and is the most famous on the island. It is quite special for several reasons.
The first reason is due to the peculiar landscape that characterizes it, one in which olive trees coexist with the waters of the Ionian Sea The olive trees here can be found right on the edge of the shore. This is so much so that the swimmers who come to the area do not need to carry an umbrella with them, because they have natural umbrellas sheltering them from the rain.
These olive trees are traditional, long-living olive trees that belong to a farm of 15 hectares and are distributed on large pieces of land. They are of the Mastoidis variety, which is quite resistant to salinity. An exquisite EVOO is obtained from them, and tourists can taste it in a picturesque cantina located on the very same beach.
The second reason why Dexa Beach stands out is because several historians stated that it is the place where Odysseus arrived on his trip back to Ithaca from Troy, which is why this beach is an must-see destination for tourists visiting the Ionian Islands.
Ithaca is the homeland of Odysseus (Ulysses, in Latin), from where he left to fight in the Trojan War and to which he returned ten years later.
Both stories are told in The Iliadand The Odyssey, the two oldest works of Western literature. The Iliad laid the foundations of European culture and Ithaca, in the Odyssey, is the origin of the territories of literature. In this work the olive tree is mentioned several times, for example, when Odysseus used olive branches to defend himself in different moments of his return to Ithaca. Also, another olive reference was made when characters from the Odyssey covered themselves in EVOO.