Sandy Pylos

Antinoös, do we know in our hearts, or do we not know, when Telemachos returns from sandy Pylos?

19:30 The suitors are leaving the palace
19:40-20:30 Telemachos walks to the ship
20:30-20:40 Encouragement of the companions
20:40-21:30 They all walk to the palace
21:30-21:40 Collecting the provisions
21:40-22:30 Walking back to the ship
22:30-22:45 Loading the ship
22:45-23:00 Preparing the ship
23:00 Departure of the (19:00 hour long) trip
18:00 Arrival at Pylos the next day.

Odyssey Book 4 line 578-581 Barry B Powell

Modern Pylos

No beaches around Pylos

Homer would not have written 'sandy' if it hadn't been a significant feature of Pylos, it must be a sandy place, but there are no beaches near modern Pylos. There are some beaches at the village of Romanos on the coast, which is 7,5 km away from the Mycenaean palace that Carl Blegen believed to be the Palace of Nestor. However, there's a beach 30km north of this wrong Pylos, which is one of the largest beaches in Greece. It measures about 60km in length. Considering Homer's emphasis I think this might fit the description much better.

Palace

Romanos

Some beaches near the palace

Largest beach of the Peleponessos

According to this timeline the ship sets off about 3 hours too late in order to reach modern Pylos at the beginning of the feast. In fact, at 18:00 it would have been completely dark once more before the ship would arrive. Modern Pylos is just too far away, it's the wrong town and the wrong palace, Noëmon, the owner of Telemachos' ship, needs his ship to come back and asks the leader of the suitors: