ocean-pilgrim

Like a bird on a wire… Anyone else love that song by Leonard Cohen?  Turns out that he wrote it here on the beautiful island of Hydra.  This long, skinny, jagged strip of an island is just a few miles off the Greek mainland and sits strategically between the Argolic and Saronic gulfs.

I can see why Leonard was inspired to write here. The first reason is that there’s a lot of space outside the only town on the island. The town spills down the hillsides, like an amphitheatre at the base of which is the fortified harbour and the beating, vibrant heart of the island. Miles of empty hillsides, a few walls and some painstakingly prepared flat land for small crops, the odd windmill, a whitewashed church but beyond this the view is of the ever changing blue of the deep and velvety Aegean sea.

The second reason is somewhat like the first as it’s the absence of noise, it’s a place where you can think without distraction.  No cars and no motorbikes scream up and down the few roads on the island.  Just one garbage truck is all there is and I haven’t figured out if it actually comes and goes on the supply boat.

To move goods and materials around the town they use mules. They tie up outside the church in a back street or stand patiently waiting by the supply ship ready to transport up the steep and narrow alleyways whatever is required above.  The mules have bells and they huff as they go past but this noise is a part of the environment like the birds and the breeze and the whistles of the mule drivers.

The harbour heart is busy and noisy with day tripper boats, ferries and the coming and going of charter boats, private yachts and super yachts. The locals are not indifferent or unhappy with the tourism as many who have been on the island for generations know that their prosperity is tied to the blue waters that surround them and who it brings to them from beyond. They were great ship builders in the past but got swept up in the bid for freedom from the Ottomans in the early 19^th century and their fleet of ships was destroyed and their owners left without income. It was a fight for freedom but it bought about hardship that was relieved only in the 1960’s when the wealthy the famous and infamous came to town. Onassis, Callas, The Rolling Stones, Clapton, Sofia Loren, George Johnston and Charmiane Clift, John Lennon and Leonard who spent 7 years on the island.

People came for the beautiful architecture, the peace, because it was the IT place, because the ideas of peace and freedom and art and poetry had found a home here long before Leonard arrived.

Beauty inspires art and Hydra is lovely.  The town is filled with everything that we love about the Greek Islands: crystal clear water, civic pride that means its super clean, loads of well fed and desexed cats, art and sculpture in public places, and outdoor cinema, only a small amount of charmingly neglected old buildings, whitewash, bougainvillea, mulberry trees, interesting alleyways, castles and fortifications. People sit in the bars and tavernas talking over coffee, playing backgammon, dance at night in the back streets and sip wine overlooking the twinkling lights of the harbour.

There’s a lot to love here.  The only caveat I have is a yachtie based one and the reason we’ve never visited before and that is the harbour is crazy in summer with boats rafting up 2,3 or even 4 deep.  Anchors are crossed and crossed words are spoken, damage is often done. Fools rush in is definitely applicable here.  But at the beginning and end of the season and when the charter boats have returned to Athens to change over their crews its magical. If the weather is inclement like it was for us it keeps the weekend tourists away too.  Plus if you’re not in the middle of it you could sit at a taverna on one coffee or a wine for a good 3 hours enjoying the entertainment.  It’s a frequent past time.

You should come.  It’s only 2 or 3 hours on the ferry from Athens.  Walk the back streets, steal a fig or some mulberries, an orange or a lemon and write poetry that you might leave for others. Take some time to listen to the ocean, watch the birds on a wire and soak it all in.