Greek epics gained new force for historian Bettany Hughes after a near-fatal storm on the Icarian Sea, while she was researching Odysseus for television and later reflecting on Silk Road travel.
In a National Geographic Traveller (UK) interview as told to Farida Zeynalova, Hughes looked back on Kent childhood trips, a terrifying Aegean sail tied to Greek epics, and Bukhara finds that still shape how she packs.
Hughes is a historian, author and broadcaster who specialises in ancient and medieval history and culture. Greek City Times has also covered her on how Socrates foresaw the wounds of social media.
When Greek epics met a storm off Ikaria
Her hardest journey, she said, came while researching Odysseus and the Odyssey. The crew was sailing from Ikaria to Mykonos across the Icarian Sea, waters she called famously rough.
Read more: A Greek Perspective On Why Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is a Travesty
Even Homer describes that stretch as raging like a demagogue, she noted. The Icarian Sea still carries the myth of Icarus, who fell nearby in the old stories.
“We’d been sailing for eight hours at night when a freak storm blew up, and we were practically vertical,” Hughes said. “We made it back, but the captain said we’d almost died.”
The scare, she said, gave her a new respect for Odysseus and for everyone who made those epic journeys. For her, Greek epics stopped feeling like remote school texts and started feeling like hard-won seamanship.
Readers tracing Homeric geography can still walk related ground. Greek City Times has mapped seven Greek sites from Homer’s Iliad that visitors can still reach.
Silk Road lessons in Bukhara
Hughes has long spoken fondly of Uzbekistan, a Silk Road crossroads she sets beside the Greek epics she films and writes about. She called it a place where travellers have been welcomed for thousands of years.
In Bukhara, guides let her hold a tiny camel figure about 1,700 years old. It was, she said, the first of its kind to show a camel with a rider, packs of water and goods, and a dog or cat alongside.
“It represented a nomad travelling the Silk Roads,” she said. The miniature turned abstract trade routes into a single human story she could hold in her hand.
When she packs now, the list is practical. Lots of pants, because desert shops are scarce. Industrial-strength vitamin C, because it can head off team infections. And a notebook, which goes everywhere with her.
Surprises from China to Sofia
Rural China surprised her most. Travelling alone on the trail of Confucius, she found welcome in tiny villages. Locals even asked about the next episode of Downton Abbey.
Azerbaijan also caught her off guard. It gave women the vote in 1918, she said, and she still enjoys finding those positive, unexpected stories.
Sofia impressed her with layered history. Walk through an underpass, she said, and a stretch of late Roman wall can suddenly appear. People there, she added, love their history and preserve it with care.
Greek epics, new books and wish lists
Interest in Homeric names, myths and Greek epics has also stayed high in popular culture. Greek City Times noted a surge in Greek mythology baby names ahead of 2027.
Hughes still has places she wants to see. Iraq sits near the top, as one of the few rich ancient civilisations she has not yet visited. She also wants more time in South America, travelling inland from Cartagena in Colombia.
Her book Ancient Egypt: A History in Seven Treasures is out now. The Channel 4 series Vikings: First Blood aired from 25 October. A short profile of her career sits alongside the travel interview for readers new to her work.
First memories still matter to her. As a city child, she loved the drive into Kent meadows and orchards, even when the family cat escaped the travel basket. Freezing dips in the English Channel then sealed the summer.
From those early horizons to Greek epics on a vertical Aegean night, Hughes keeps returning to the same idea. Travel, for her, is how ancient stories — and Greek epics above all — stay alive in the body as well as on the page.
Source: National Geographic
