Reddit reviews Eleni

In Epiros, Ioannina is the largest city but very historical, as it has a lot of Ottoman influence. During Ottoman occupation, Ali Pasha (the regional ruler) was headquartered in the city and I believe you can also visit his castle. Just outside the city, you can visit the oldest remaining oracle in Greece, the Oracle at Dodona.

Further west in Epiros, up in the mountains, you can visit Lia, which is the setting of the events in the book Eleni (full disclosure just about everyone in the book is a relative of mine). There is a small hotel there that opened thanks to the publicity from the book. From there you can head to Igoumenitsa on the coast and ferry to Corfu.

My grandmother came here as a refugee from Greece in the 40s during the Greek Civil War. For smuggling her children out of her village, my great-grandmother was executed and one of my great aunts was 'conscripted' (ie kidnapped) by local guerillas. She refused to hold a rifle or to kill, so she was given radio equipment. She escaped during a battle by hiding under the bodies of those killed in the battle until she found officers of the nationalist (not in the way the racists are nationalists - these were the non-communist belligerents) forces to surrender to, where she was sent to a POW camp and then reunited with her young siblings in the refugee camp.

They went to America to meet a father they barely knew, separated from them because of the war, never knowing the fate of their mother for sure until much later, and didn't know who killed her and why for decades. My grandmother and my grandfather (who himself was a refugee into Greece from Albania when Hoxha took over) were successful business owners in America, one of my great aunts and her husband were real estate investors (and their children were lawyers and doctors), another one was another small business owner, and my great uncle became a movie producer, investigative journalist (one of the first reporters to hear the Watergate tapes), and writer. His book Eleni - about him finding out who murdered his mother - was cited by Ronald Reagan as his inspiration for pursuing the destruction of the Berlin Wall.