Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” hit theaters on July 17, and the real-world shoot was almost as epic as Homer’s poem.
This guide to the odyssey filming locations covers the main countries Nolan and his cast shot across a 91-day production: Morocco, Italy, Greece, Scotland, Iceland, and Malta.
Where was The Odyssey actually filmed?
Morocco: Troy and the Trojan coast
Morocco stood in for the ancient city of Troy and the beach where the Trojans dragged the wooden horse ashore.
| Filming location | Role in the film |
|---|---|
| Essaouira | The Atlantic-coast beach used for the wooden-horse discovery scene and Odysseus’s departure by sea. |
| Aït Benhaddou | The fortified UNESCO ksar near the Atlas Mountains, built out with roughly 60 extra structures, including a “Temple of Athena,” to become the city of Troy. |
| Tahanaout | A market town near Marrakech used for additional city scenes. |
Morocco is a filming favorite for a reason: Aït Benhaddou has stood in for ancient settlements in “Gladiator”, “Game of Thrones”, and now “The Odyssey”.
Travelers can visit year-round; book hotels in Morocco near Ouarzazate for the closest base to the ksar.
Italy: Ithaca and the Aeolian Islands
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Italy supplied Odysseus’s home island and the mythical Aeolia, home of the wind god.
| Filming location | Role in the film |
|---|---|
| Favignana and Castello di Santa Caterina, Sicily | The palace of Odysseus and Penelope on Ithaca. |
| Vulcano, Lipari, and Basiluzzo (the Aeolian Islands) | The mythical island of Aeolia, plus the “Wandering Rocks” and Scylla’s channel sequences. |
| Pietra del Bagno, Lipari | The shoal where the crew’s ship keeps clear of the Sirens. |
Fly into Palermo for the closest major airport to both Favignana and the Aeolian Islands, and look at hotels in Palermo as a base before island-hopping.
Greece: the Cyclops’ cave and the Peloponnese
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Greece hosted the Cyclops sequence, filmed in a real cave rather than a set.
| Filming location | Role in the film |
|---|---|
| Voidokilia Beach, Peloponnese | The “Island of the Cyclopes” where the crew first encounters Polyphemus. |
| Nestor’s Cave | Polyphemus’s cave, filmed inside the actual cave rather than a built set. |
| Methoni Castle | The palace of Menelaus. |
| Acrocorinth | Used for flashback scenes of Agamemnon’s arrival in Mycenae. |
The Peloponnese is easy to reach via Athens. A quick planning note: this region is generally safe for travelers, but check current advisories before you go rather than relying on a film-tourism itinerary alone.
Scotland, Iceland, and Malta: the rest of Odysseus’s world
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Three more countries filled in the remaining mythical stops.
| Filming location | Role in the film |
|---|---|
| Culbin Forest, Moray Firth coast, Scotland | The pine woodland where the crew encounters the giant Laestrygonians. |
| Findlater Castle, Scotland | Home of the sorceress Circe, played by Samantha Morton. |
| Hjörleifshöfði, southern Iceland | The underworld realm of Hades. |
| Mediterranean Film Studios, Kalkara, Malta | Underwater photography and ocean battle sequences, shot in some of the world’s largest water tanks. |
Matt Damon and Tom Holland were spotted filming near the small village of Burghead on Scotland’s Moray coast. The nearest airport for that stretch of coast is Inverness.
Is any of it filmed in Homer’s actual Greece?
Only partly. Homer’s Odyssey is set almost entirely around real Greek geography: Troy in what is now northwestern Türkiye, Ithaca in the Ionian Sea, and a scattering of Mediterranean islands for the Cyclopes, the Sirens, and Aeolia.
Nolan’s production only used actual Greek soil for the Cyclops sequence, in the Peloponnese, not the northwestern Aegean coast where ancient Troy stood, and not the real island of Ithaca. Troy was rebuilt in Morocco, and the “Ithaca” palace was filmed on Favignana in Sicily.
That gap between the movie’s real shoot map and the myth’s real-world map is exactly what makes this such a fun trip to plan: you can chase the film locations, or you can chase Homer’s actual settings, and they mostly don’t overlap.
This article was first published in Wego.
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