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I'm Bettany Hughes,

and I want to take you on the ultimate adventure

across the Greek islands.

This has to be one of the most exciting places on Earth, a place

full of mystery and wonder

and tens of thousands of years of history and human experience.

A cradle of civilisation, the Greece of the ancient world

hot-housed everything from democracy to medicine.

It gave us the Olympics, engineering triumphs and some of the most epic

stories of all time.

Stories that have been passed down for thousands of years

and that still influence us today.

One of the very greatest centres on the Greek hero, Odysseus,

the legendary warrior whose cunning won the Trojan War.

After the victory, he begins a long journey home

to the far west of Greece across the seas.

His story, The Odyssey, is a brilliant tale of triumph

over adversity and danger, inspiring books, movies and adventures.

And on my personal odyssey, I'm following Odysseus' path

from east to west.

I want to try to experience what he experienced.

Whoa!

Make amazing new discoveries.

It's just perfect. Still bright yellow, isn't it?

Enjoy the delights of ancient Greece today... Mmm!

..and uncover the truths behind these fabulous myths and legends...

And this is almost certainly the killer blow.

..to see how they can help us understand the world and ourselves.

Join me on this epic voyage, my Greek odyssey.

I'm crossing the Mediterranean,

following Odysseus' trail from Troy

in modern-day Turkey to his home island of Ithaca.

Last time I travelled to Santorini, where I braved a volcano,

and now my voyage takes me to the largest island in Greece.

For 5,000 years, the Greek islands have seen powers come and go,

civilisations rise and fall.

And the place I'm heading to next has witnessed more action than most.

It's Crete, or as the ancient Greeks called it, Magali Mythos.

The Big Island.

In ancient history, Crete was a superpower and in myth

it was a famous birthplace of gods and heroes.

On this stop in my odyssey, I'm going to explore

the extraordinary 4,000-year-old palace of Knossos, where fact

and fantasy collide and come face-to-face with the darkest side

of ancient Greece - virgin sacrifice.

I first came Crete 30 years ago.

Only then I was hitching a ride on the back of fishing boats

and sleeping on the decks of ferries overnight.

And now I'm doing it in slightly more style.

We're being told that the weather is really setting in.

So it's going to be quite

interesting to see what Crete has in store.

It's good to be reaching the safety of this historic harbour

because overnight the weather goes from bad to worse.

A massive sea storm blew up last night.

So thank goodness I arrived because there is no way

I'd have got on or off this island in conditions like this.

The port of Chania in the north of Crete has been a safe haven

for brave sailors since the age of Odysseus.

In wild weather conditions like this, you can really understand

how Odysseus and his crew had to form this kind of tight bond

cos they would have completely

depended on one another for their survival.

And in an old boat yard here, there's been a brilliant experiment

in shipbuilding that would've worked out what it would be like to be on

the sea in the Bronze Age.

Because here a replica boat has been built from the age of Odysseus.

Great to see this, because I first came here almost 20 years ago

when they'd on only just started the project.

And they've been really painstakingly doing

it just using the materials that were available

over 3,000 years ago.

Odysseus' boats, often described as his black boats,

so the outside of the hull is covered in resin

to keep it waterproof.

That beautiful mast is made of pine and the sail is made of linen.

It's just gorgeous, isn't it?

It's actually quite sad looking at this empty boat because we know

that Odysseus Troy with a squadron of 12 ships

and an each one there would've been around 50 or 60 men.

But they met so many challenges along the way, they all die.

And by the time he gets home, he's the only one left.

The Odyssey describes the terrible power of storms from the north.

Exactly like this one right now.

Battering the seas, tearing sails to rags,

anxiety gnawing at the hearts of sailors fearing for their lives.

So to get a safe vantage point,

I've convinced Chania's harbour master

to help me get access to their historic lighthouse.

Oh, my God, this is very exciting to get up here.

OK, to go in, Stelios? Yes. OK. Efharisto.

I'm wondering if this was such a good idea. This lighthouse

has guided sailors along the Cretan coast for hundreds of years,

but it's physically shaking today.

Wow. Oh, my God.

Wow, this is pretty amazing to be up here because no

one's normally allowed up.

This is one of the oldest light houses still standing.

It was built around 500 years ago.

And then it was lit just by a naked flame.

But there have always been beacons like this here because Crete

was described as a thalassocracy - a sea power.

And you can see this is quite a power to be in charge of.

And we know that even in Odysseus' time, they would have beacons

that would light ships in and out of this port.

So amazing being here.

I'm thinking what it would've been

like for men like him 3,000 years ago.

Although, I know I shouldn't really admit this to you,

it's also really scary.

And I've never had this before, but my knees are actually trembling.

So I'm going to stay up here for a little bit and then I'm going

to make my way back to shore.

I time my visit to Crete for the Epiphany Festival,

which in the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates Jesus' baptism

in the River Jordan and our relationship with water, but also

echoes the way ancient Greeks worshipped the waves.

CHANTING

Normally after the church service, the entire town parades

down to the port so that the priest can bless the water, but the issue

is today there's been a severe weather warning and people

have been told they have to stay indoors.

But I've heard there are some determined priests who really want

to make the sea sacred and they're just up here.

Kalimera!

You do believe that it brings blessings to the water?

In the ancient times they believed the same thing.

So they would make an offering to the water, maybe wine, sometimes

throw in wooden boats. It's long tradition.

So these boys...they dive in to get the cross. Wow.

This aquatic ritual takes place across Greece on January sixth.

HE RECITES PRAYER OWN LANGUAGE

He's making prayers to bless the sea,

and there's these little goblins

that they think inhabit the sea, Kallikantzaroi.

He's trying to banish them so that people can go out sailing again.

HE RECITES PRAYER IN OWN LANGUAGE

I'm really cold, I'm really cold!

HE CONTINUES RECITING

Retrieving a cross from the water earns a special blessing.

And these guys certainly deserve

some kind of reward for going in today.

HE SPEAKS GREEK

Will that bring him blessings for the year?

This guy found it.

Was it cold? OK...

SHE CHUCKLES

Well done, boys.

Go back in without it, then!

Take your wet suits of then, if you feel... Ah, well done.

Isn't that brilliant

that they're still determined to be here to witness the blessing

of the seas and get the cross?

And that will bring them luck to the rest of the year.

And it is exactly like Odysseus and his companions did.

Next on my journey, I'm travelling eastwards on this big island

to discover the facts behind one of the most terrifying myths

in all of ancient Greece.

My Greek island odyssey has brought me to Crete, the biggest

island in Greece and a hub of human activity for at least 9,000 years.

A few miles from the modern capital, Heraklion, as a prehistoric centre

of power, one of the most visited sites in Greece.

It gives us clues to the exotic palaces of the Odyssey, bridging

the gap between myth and reality.

Welcome to the Palace of Knossos.

A lost wonder of the ancient world,

much of it unearthed a century ago by British

archaeologist, Arthur Evans.

This was a huge palace that covered over six acres, that's around four

football pitches, and some of the buildings were three or even

four storeys high.

Evans spent 25 years excavating, revealing a trading superpower

that connected Europe, Asia and Africa.

This place was at its height when ancient Egypt

was also flourishing.

And if you look at how it was decorated you can really see that

there was a connection between the two.

So you have to imagine this place basically a riot of colour

with all the walls and rooms decorated with gorgeous

frescoes like this.

There are images of bulls everywhere here and Evans suggested this palace

belonged to the legendary King Minos, minus a monarch plagued

by a bull-like monster.

Crete is home to one of the most famous legends of all time,

the myth of the Minotaur - half man, half bull.

The story starts when a beautiful white bull appears from the sea.

And the king of this island, King Minos, says that he is going to give

it his sacrifice to Poseidon.

But then Minos really wants to keep that beautiful creature for himself.

And he substitutes an inferior bull in its place.

This is a big mistake.

You cannot kid the gods like that.

Poseidon is furious and sent a terrible curse

on Minos and his family.

He manages to inspire in Minos' wife, Pasiphae, a longing and lust

for the bull.

She made love to it and the result of the unholy union

was the Minotaur - half human, half animal.

The monster was hidden here in the Palace of Knossos,

in underground labyrinth where it was kept as a dirty secret.

The Minotaur might be pure fantasy, but the palace complex

is a labyrinth, a maze of rooms and corridors.

Up to 25,000 people lived here in a society where women enjoyed

status and power, rivalling that of the men.

They were often beautiful things like this to wear.

It's a pendant with two bees

putting some honey in a piece of comb.

And isn't that just incredible to think of women

three and a half thousand years ago wearing something like this?

It's just too beautiful.

And I would definitely wear it today.

There's a good story about the excavation of this room.

When it was first discovered, the archaeologists of Arthur Evans

decided that this wooden seat was a throne and not

just any old throne, but a queen's throne, because that stone seat,

there was the right shape to accommodate

a woman's ample backside.

I have to say I think that's complete nonsense,

but he was on to something because the fact that there

are griffins either side tells us almost certainly

that this was where a priestess sat and that during religious rituals

she would take on the soul of a goddess.

Arthur Evans and his team reconstructed much of Knossos.

Now it's teams of researchers and virtual reality designers

who transport us deep into the past.

There is this brilliant new little bit of technology here,

which is that putting it back into 3D. So...

Oh, here we go.

OK, so you get a sense of the colours.

And then one of the things that they did here was...

Oh, here is, there's the bull.

So they were bull leaping contests here.

You know, this was a kind of rite

of passage and a test of strength

and agility and a real bonding

experience for the...

Here we go, here we go, he's going to leap!

That's great. That's so cool.

So there's these really tall kinds of bulls called aurochs, which are

now extinct, about one and a half metres at the shoulder.

So this was a really, really dangerous sport.

Off he goes again. My God, that's fantastic. That's great.

We know the palace would have looked something like this,

a vast complex of around 1,300 rooms,

grand courtyards, aqueducts,

piped water and way before the Romans, even a flushing loo.

The scale and sophistication here is mirrored by the scale

of the location's finds.

I think you're going to absolutely love this place.

This is the Knossos Research Centre.

And it is a hub of activity.

Hi. Hi. Sorry to bother you. Hi. Sorry to bother you, hi.

So this is physically where the finds are jigsaw puzzled together.

And there is a huge amount of material to work on.

So here there are 7,000 of these boxes all packed high

with shards and fragments.

And that is only 20% of the material that was originally found.

Here you feel incredibly connected to the individuals of the past

because you've got their fingerprints on this pot.

I can feel them there and they press down the base and then run

their fingers around to smooth edge.

That is absolutely fabulous.

Just on this one table alone, there's a whole horde of treasuries.

This is particularly exciting.

So this is actually from a later period, but it's a stamp

on a bit of clay.

And the image that has been stamped on it is the image of a labyrinth.

So we know that the people here were telling one another stories

of the Minotaur and his lair.

In the Odyssey you hear a huge amount about feasting and drinking

and you get the sense that this was something that really mattered

to the heroes and warriors of the day, and the wonderful thing

is that the archaeology backs that up, too.

So this is all equipment used for feasting and drinking back

in the Bronze Age.

There were hundreds and hundreds of these cups.

You almost have to sort of think

of them perhaps like the disposable cups of today.

So they'd be used sometimes and then thrown away after one use.

Not every time, but sometimes.

And then these amazing things.

This is used to pour the wine

into a fabulous cup like this.

This is really the ultimate quality.

And I'm holding something which is 3,500 years old.

Just imagine it.

The heroes like Odysseus would have lifted cups

like this to their lips to have a drink of wine in the Bronze Age.

Amazing. It's amazing.

At these feasts, Greeks across the Mediterranean

would have told tales of heroes and monsters, including stories

about Knossos' very own Minotaur,

the half man, half bull with a bloody appetite.

Every year, King Minos demands a terrible tribute.

Seven young girls and seven boys

to be brought here and given as human sacrifice to the beast.

A gruesome gift for the Minotaur.

One year, the son of the king of Athens, the hero Theseus, decides

that enough is enough, and he volunteers for duty,

determined to kill the beast.

He comes here to Knossos and, fortunately, catches the eye of the

beautiful Princess Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos.

She decides that she's going to help him in his quest and gives him

a sword to kill the Minotaur and a ball of thread

so that he can find his way back through the labyrinth.

Theseus ventures into the heart of darkness.

He kills him, and Ariadne and Theseus

then make a desperate escape from Crete.

These myths might seem pretty full-on, but I'm about to discover

they're nothing in comparison to the savage reality of life

3,000 years ago.

Wow.

I'm in Crete uncovering the realities behind the Greek myths

and exploring its rich history.

In the age of Odysseus, the islanders thought natural

disasters like storms, earthquakes and tsunamis were punishments sent

by angry gods.

To appease them they resorted to sacrifice.

These are the backstreets behind Chania port.

When they were doing work here

they discovered a prehistoric crime scene.

Archaeologist Maria Andreadaki-Vlazaki

helped piece together the shocking events of 3,000 years ago.

Hi, Maria? Hi.

It's amazing to come down here.

Look at this place, Maria.

This is just absolutely brilliant.

I read you discovered something A bit surprising here.

so you can tell there's been an earthquake here.

Can you actually see the cracks on the floor?

Directly here? Yes.

It must have been absolutely petrifying because,

cos they don't know this is science.

For them, this is just the anger of the gods.

Yes.

So this is...? It's a human, it's a girl?

So you have photos... Just the...

Wow. There's been this terrible trauma.

Many people have died horribly

if there's been an earthquake.

So they think sacrifice means

to make something sacred.

So, in a way, they're making

this young girl sacred

for the gods to try to appease them.

Well, this is the most remarkable place, Maria.

And it has a very sad story to tell.

Very macabre.

Virgin sacrifice actually features in the tale of the Trojan War.

Odysseus' comrade in arms,

King Agamemnon, kills his own daughter, so the gods send winds

for him to sail to Troy.

But when the Greeks get there, the atrocities keep coming.

Some at the hands of the legendary Achilles.

Achilles was the ultimate hero.

Part God, part man.

He was the greatest warrior the world had ever known.

He was perfectly beautiful and fearless.

But the one thing he loved above all other was his comrade, Patroclus.

But Patroclus was slain on the battlefield.

Achilles was desperate with despair.

He clawed at the ground and tore his hair and covered

his face with dirt.

And then he ordered the creation

of a massive funerary pyre, 100 feet long.

There was an orgy of slaughter.

Sheep and cattle and dogs and horses while they were still alive.

And then 12 Trojans were killed in retribution

for Patroclus' death.

The stories of the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus

are stories of revenge.

Revenge for the capture of Helen of Troy,

and then revenge for the terrible, horrific, brutal acts of war

on both sides.

The moral was clear.

Do terrible things and terrible things will be done to you.

Now, there's conclusive evidence that these stories

have roots in reality.

Back in the 1980s, Greek archaeologists uncovered

an extraordinary site.

The city of Eleutherna.

Professor Stampolidis led the dig and made an incredible discovery,

now kept here at the Museum of Ancient Eleutherna.

Professor. How lovely. Thank you.

What a view. Yes, indeed.

This is Zeus' place. It is.

And what a place. And this is the museum.

So, please, Professor, talk me through this, because I know

this is absolutely unique, what we're looking at.

This is the original pyre, funeral pyre

of a princely warrior of Eleutherna

of the 8th century BC.

So the earth I'm looking at here, so this is 2,700 years old. Yes.

Even the earth. Yes. Incredible.

It was a pyre for a very high rank man.

We know he was a warrior

because of his sword, the knives and the spear.

And we know through the anthropological investigation

that he was a man very robust

and at around 30 to 35 years old.

But this is, it's so exciting to see this because we hear

about these funerary pyres in the stories of Odysseus

and the heroes. And Homer. And Homer, exactly.

So especially, of course, this great pyre that Achilles built

for his soul mate's...

Beloved friend, yes. Beloved Patroclus.

Professor Stampolidis has also uncovered a more grisly similarity.

We found another skeleton.

The position of this man's back bone indicates he was executed,

put to death as he knelled by the funeral pyre.

Legs and hands together... Like that.

..so they slaughtered him

and he rests there forever.

This is the only way to do it.

Yeah, but are you saying it would have been a kind of ritual

killing, an act of vengeance? Yes.

A warrior of Eleutherna died

in a battle and they have captured

one of their enemies, killed him in front of this pyre.

This is so important because it tells us that behind those myths,

there are these kernels of truth.

So in the stories of the great heroes, of Odysseus, and Achilles

and Agamemnon, we have some fact as well as the fiction.

Exactly.

Here in Crete, the reality that inspires myths and legends

lives on in the land.

Oh, my God.

So I've just got to stop and tell you something. The...

Sorry, everybody.

So these goats, these goats are written about in The Odyssey

and there are hardly any of them and they're native to Crete

and it's very rare to see them.

Crete's goats get a shout-out in myth.

The ancient tradition of cheesemaking is described

here in high caves.

So I've hitched a lift up into the mountains with a priest

who is also a shepherd and a cheese maker.

Possibly bitten off more than I can chew because I find myself

on the back of a pick-up truck on a dirt road somewhere on the mountain.

You know, it's kind of a bit of an adventure.

Oh, my God. Like...

Like Odysseus had adventures.

Aww!

BLEATING

It's a little baby.

Hello, darling. Hello.

BLEATING Oh!

Hello, darling.

Father Andreas uses the milk from his large flock to make cheese

in the traditional Cretan way.

This is the most incredible sheppard's cave.

This is Amazing. So this is, um,

this is one these really traditional, isn't it?

A mitato? A mitato.

Yeah. It's called a mitato, these stone buildings.

And they've been around since the Stone Age here.

OK, so there's white wine vinegar that's gonna go in,

and when he pours it in

at that moment it becomes cheese and that's it.

So they also encourage cobwebs, here, don't you?

So the spiders, so there's no fly issue at all.

So they let the spiders spin their webs up in that little hole at the

top so that the flies all get eaten by spiders.

Father, you are the quickest cheesemaker I've ever met.

Ah, OK, that sounds good.

So you made it this morning? OK.

Inevitably a drink. I bet this is Raki.

Doesn't matter what time of day.

Efharisto. Yamas. Yamas.

OK, down in one.

Hah! Huh-ha-ha-ha!

Ooh, that's very straight down to my stomach.

Thank you. Lovely fresh cheese.

Oh, thank you.

I eat this as well.

Uh, yeah.

Mmm.

Mmm! Ah.

Efharisto, efharisto.

These sheperd huts haven't just been used for cheesemaking.

during the Second World War they served a very different purpose.

I'm about to discover what.

During World War II, Crete was strategically important to both

Britain and Germany.

Shepherd huts and caves in these mountains would be used

to hide resistance fighters.

In May 1941, the island became a battleground.

Hitler sent in elite squads of parachutists, paratroopers,

who started to drop from the sky around here.

Local Cretans, often only armed with very antiquated weapons

and British and allied forces started to pick them off.

But this would be the beginning

of what would come to be called the Battle of Crete.

Many British troops were forced to flee.

Royal Navy caught in the straits by 1,200 German planes,

driving the Royal Navy to Alexandria.

After the battle, the Germans occupied Crete for the next four

years and many of the islanders

fought on as a civilian resistance force.

The Nazis responded with ruthless brutality.

By the end of the war, 18,000 Commonwealth troops

had been evacuated, 12,000 had been taken prisoner.

2,000 had died.

And 1,500 of them are commemorated here.

Eight decades on remnants

of World War II are still strewn across the island.

Historian and collector Stelios dedicates much of his spare time

hunting for relics from the war.

He's amassed a hoard, which he makes

available for the public to see in his own home.

Hello! Stelios?

This man is legendary for his mania,

for collecting things and bringing them to your house.

Now I know what they were talking about.

This presumably was his sitting room at some point.

How many things do you have in total?

Yeah?

What of this have you found recently?

There must be a lot left by the Germans.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Look. 1941 And there's the swastika

and the Luftwaffe sign of the eagle.

What survives on Crete aren't just artefacts, but eyewitnesses.

Journalist Vicky Arvelaki has brought me to the martyr village

of Afthonidis, to meet 95-year-old Michalis, who aged just 15,

narrowly escaped a German firing squad.

Mr Michalis. Thank you. VICKI SPEAKS GREEK

Saying he was only 13, an officer took pity on Michalis

and let him slip away.

Wow, it's so terrible.

It's a shell from the executions. Yes.

And he founded last year.

Miraculously, Michalis survived the shooting, but when a group

of villagers, including his father,

went back to the massacre site to bury their dead,

the Germans were waiting.

So another 22 people were executed.

Your father?

Nobody should have to see something like that.

Do you still miss your father?

VICKY SPEAKS GREEK

It's very important to keep remembering these stories.

Well, thank you for sharing the story.

One good thing that survived from the past, even from the time

of the Trojan War, is that there's a tradition here

of welcoming strangers.

And you've made me feel very welcome.

Crete's reminded me how stories speak to people across decades,

centuries, even millennia.

And that's why they're worth retelling, because they're legends

from the past that help us live now.

Nice to see you. Is it OK, to get on? Yeah, sure.

Look at the amazing rainbow. OK, anywhere. Yeah.

Thanks.

Just before the weather turns on me, I've got to head

across the waters towards Ithaca.

Amazing to have that rainbow in the sky.

Because the Greeks thought that rainbows were actually a goddess

called Iris who took messages to and from the other gods

and mortals up from Mount Olympus.

So I wonder what message

I'm being sent for the next leg of my journey.

Crete is such a jewel of a place.

In some ways and can understand why

everyone is from the Nazis to the Romans to the Minoans

thought it was worth killing and dying for.

And there've been some really beautiful moments,

but it's also been quite sobering.

I kind of feel I have learnt about the darker sides of both

Mother Nature and human nature.

But the journey doesn't stop.

I've got to carry on with my odyssey. And just like Odysseus,

there are definitely going to be some more adventurous in store.

Next time I go in search of shipwrecks,

seek out 3,000-year-old golden treasures...

That's so cool! It's so amazing.

..and discover how the warrior spirit of Odysseus' age lives on.

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