Blog Four: Hydra, Argo-Saronics, Greece
[13th-17th October 2024]
And suddenly, here it is…. that elusive old Greek magic.
As the ferry from Piraeus approaches Hydra, Fiona asks me if I’m excited to finally be arriving here, 44 years after we elected not to get off the ferry at Hydra and to carry on to our first Greek island of Spetses. I confess that my predominant feeling is one of apprehension – might Hydra turn out to be a bit of a boring damp squib after all that we’ve built up in our minds in the years since our first trip in 1980?
In the build-up to us leaving on this trip, I’ve researched a little about Leonard Cohen’s time on the Hydra at the turn of the 1960s, as part of a bohemian set of artists and writers who discovered the island and lived here for a number of years. Polly Samson (wife of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour) also wrote a novel conjuring up those heady, pre-hippy days, when young artists and writers abandoned the grey rigidity of their lives at home and discovered the light, food, drink, and romance of these amazing islands. Grainy YouTube videos also provide a hint of the atmosphere of those formative times.
Almost as soon as we alight from the ferry we can feel that Hydra has something which the Cycladic islands we visited have lacked. It seems a cliche to describe it as authenticity, but I can’t think of a better word.
Hydra has long accommodated tourists from afar, as well as day and weekend trippers from Athens, and it’s done so without losing its identity or the locals’ pride in their island. The densely packed town rises steeply from one of the most attractive working ports we’ve visited on any Mediterranean island, and the immediate impression is positive.
Once we get settled into our large apartment, part of a family-run hotel converted from existing village houses, we sally forth from our enclosed courtyard. As soon as we emerge from the street door, we are hit by the balmy air, and the smell of donkeys. There are no cars on Hydra, other than emergency vehicles and the odd small delivery van. Donkeys still provide the primary means of transport of loads up from the port to the winding narrow streets that climb steeply up the hill to which Hydra Town clings.
As we walk a few yards down towards the traditional taverna on the corner, two elderly gentlemen seated at a table start to sing Greek folk songs, accompanying themselves on guitars. We look around, wondering if the cast of “Mamma Mia” is going to leap out from behind the bushes and belt out a wildly enthusiastic and energetically choreographed number or two. Nope, just a family of large ducks who sporadically emerge from the undergrowth.
Someone has cut a cable close to the hotel, so we have no WiFi and unfortunately no phone signal whilst in our accommodation. You could say this all adds to the rustic charm, but in practice Fiona has to keep walking towards the port until she can get 4G to conduct her business, which is awkward.
Each day begins with breakfast in the courtyard, followed by a short stroll down to the port for coffee in our favourite café, with WiFi and phone signal. It’s the one next door to the café where the famous black and white Time/Life photos were taken in the early 1960s, of old Lenny, his bird Marianne and various chums. We don’t go to that establishment, because the reviews say things like “horrible people” and “got food poisoning here” – once per trip is enough, thanks.
No trip to Hydra would be complete without a pilgrimage vertically upwards through the village, climbing endless flights of steps, to try to find the famous house bought by Leonard Cohen in the early 1960s. We are reliably informed that it takes 7 minutes to walk there from our hotel, so we decide that won’t be too much effort. Four days later we are still searching, oxygen packs strapped to our backs. Well, it feels like that.
As is normal for us, the quest starts to take on almost surreal aspects. Fiona tends to go ahead and shout back how many more flights of steps it looks like we are going to have to climb. At one point, I am leaning on a handrail, resting my sore knee while she has disappeared onwards and upwards. A student-aged girl, possibly Greek maybe American, comes bounding up the steps and stops. She appears to have sustained a chin injury, as she is sporting a large Elastoplast.
“Would you mind taking my photo?” she asks, and hands me her phone. At this moment, Fiona phones me to tell me to come up and join her, as it looks like there may be only another 15,000 feet or so to go. I inform her that I’m taking someone’s photo and I’ll join her shortly.
My new friend then strikes a succession of poses as I, an aged stranger in a deserted Greek village street, take multiple pictures of her. As I hand back her phone, I ask her if she’s been to Leonard Cohen’s house. She confesses that she has tried but failed to find it. She thanks me and bounds off ever upwards.
Some time later, Fiona and I coincide with a group of Polish people. One guy points at a house and says authoritatively that this is the Cohen residence, another in the group does similarly at a quite different property. In the absence of any signage, we are all using Google Maps which isn’t getting great signal up here. In the end, it turns out they are both wrong, and Fiona snaps a single image of the right house (we find out later).
We reckon that either the only sign marking the spot has been stolen, or that the locals have got so sick of twats like us milling about on their pilgrimages that they’ve removed all signs and are now sniggering behind their curtains. I wasn’t even that big a fan in the first place.
We take a small boat around the coast to the Four Seasons Hotel, which has a lovely taverna-style restaurant right on the pebbly beach, and boasts wonderful views across to the Peloponnese mainland and further out to other islands. We enjoy it so much that we do it again a couple of days later – on this occasion the weather is turning windy and the trip back is hair-raisingly choppy. We cling on to the rails with not a life jacket in sight.
Fiona decides to take herself off around the end of the port to the old Slaughterhouse, now a tiny gallery presenting modern art exhibitions. As we first arrived at Hydra port, we were met with the gallery on the roof of which proudly sits Jeff Koon’s homage to the sun and the wind – an enigmatically featured sun, surrounded by a revolving aura of wind-operated flames – reflecting the rays and spinning energetically. Hints of the Teletubbies, though probably best not to mention that to the artist himself.
That evening, instead of beer in the café at the port it’s hot chocolate, as the wind gets up and the temperature begins to fall. The volta, the Greek equivalent of Spain’s paseo, during which people promenade along the waterfront as the sun goes down, is conspicuous by its absence.
By our last full day on the island, the wind is strong and gusting, and the white horses outside the harbour walls are substantial, so we decide against a small boat trip to Mandraki beach. Suddenly there’s an end-of-summer feel to the place and we hang around our apartment and the port before retiring to our rooms.
So now it’s back by ferry to the joys of Piraeus, before heading for Athens Airport, and the end of the Greek part of our trip.
My dozen favourite images from our stay on Hydra are included in the gallery below. Click on a thumbnail to see a bigger image. If you’re using a mobile phone, turn your screen sideways to see the bigger image to best effect.
Image Gallery
