Cape Maleas

The seas around the cape are notoriously treacherous and difficult to navigate, featuring variable weather and occasionally very powerful storms.

In ancient times it was a busy shipping lane, and one of the major routes for crossing from the northeast Mediterranean to the west.

Homer describes how Odysseus on his return home to Ithaca rounds Cape Maleas only to be blown off course, resulting in his being lost for up to 10 years by some people's reckoning.

[4] The Cape's importance declined with the opening of the Corinth Canal, which allowed ships to bypass the Peloponnese rather than circumnavigating it.

In World War II, the German occupying forces began construction of a military tower for defense and surveillance of the major shipping lane.