More Pictures From Hydra
Some more impressions and pictures of last weekends tripp to the island of Hydra. I have some more photos from our hike up to Προφήτη Ηλίας (Profiti Ilias) monastery and from the town. They come together with the usual lame comments...
The most noteable and obvious fact about the island of Hydra is that there ar no cars or bikes. Some of the townspeople complained to us about that, but we enjoyed the side effects of it very much. Appart from everything being quieter, everything is also more relaxed. You get a different rhythm when you don't hop in and out of a car all the time (or try to avoid being run over by cars). As seen in the picture, the streets of Hydra are made to the measure of man and donkey. Cars couldn't go over those steps.
This street had wonderful blue flowerpots and assorted other decorative objects. You just don't get streets like these when there are cars parked everywhere. Not far from this place (nothing is really far from this place, it's a small town) is the restaurant κÏÏ ÏÏ Î»Î·Î¼Î¬Î½Î¹ (kryfo limani, hidden harbour) where we came back to eat, since we liked it so much in our first visit. I can especially recommend the "black eyed bean salad".
Lot's of the "roads" are just small access ways to houses more up the hill. They are obviously sized to exactly allow a packed donkey to pass.
And another street, this one is one of the bigger "main streets". It's pretty empty at the time of day. We trotted down this one a lot, since it leads to the Hotel Dina, where we lodged.
On saturday we took a looong hike up to the monastery of Profiti Ilias. Some web sites mention this as a 45 minutes walk. But it's more like 1.5 hours and if you are not used to rough stairs and the heat, it's more like 2+ hours. Bring enough water too! This is a view from about half up over the town and the harbour.
This picture on the right is already from the way down, it shows something of the atmosphere and the vegetation.
When we finally reached the monastery, we found it to be closed. But the monks had left a door to an anteroom open and offered water and loukoumia to the thirsty and hungry travelers. The view from up there is great too.
On the way back we enjoyed the great view again.
And then, back in the harbour of Hydra, we discovered these cats. There was a shop that was being redecorated, a lot of material was "parked" overnight in the street. These cats found the metal racks to be a decent sleeping place.
