Hydra island3/7/2023 He has some barbounia (red mullet) and will cook them for us at the taverna that the part of my brain that’s stuck in 1960 will call Graffos, but is actually Ostria. Stathis, in from the night boat, will tell us about his catch. I’ll bob on the waves and look back at the island, towards the port – “nothing offends the eye” as Cohen once said of it – and a few fishing boats going out and straight up at the pine trees so vividly green against the blue sky and at the walls of the windmill dancing with sun coins and so inexorably linked with Sophia Loren as a poor island girl with not much clothing in her first English-language film, Boy on a Dolphin, that she might burst from its door singing. Breaking the cool skin of the sea will be such a relief after months. Photograph: Orhan Tsolak/AlamyĪfter the bells and coffee, it’s a five-minute amble to the rocks at Spilia, the sun already gaining strength and well clear of the mountains, the water smooth. There are some truly ancient souls living on the island, who credit their good health to the 300 or 400 steps up to their doors. Everything has to be carried up from the port on foot or by donkey. Best of all, there are no cars on Hydra, or even bicycles: the streets are too precipitous for wheels and mainly made up of narrow alleys and steps cut straight into the rock. It has no airport and no high-rise buildings or big hotels Richard Branson’s plans for a resort were kicked into the rough many years ago. There are no sandy beaches instead it’s a place of pine-scented coves, warm creviced rocks and, yes, crystal water where jewel-coloured pebbles shine up at you even when you are well out of your depth. Journalist Rosie Boycott recommended Hydra because, she said, the island is surrounded by the clearest water you will ever swim in. It was May half-term and we wanted a lazy week with friends and children – and guaranteed sunshine. ![]() I don’t think I was even aware that it was the island Leonard Cohen had lived on, and knew nothing of Charmian Clift, George Johnston and the bohemian community they fostered. I first went to Hydra six years ago, when it was simply a beautiful Greek island and not a place I went to commune with its ghosts. Photograph: James Burke/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images There will be kittens at the marble monument to Admiral Kountouriotis and his lion, with its surprisingly human ears and the face of Bertrand Russell – whenever this observation by novelist and Hydra resident George Johnston floats into my head it makes me chuckle.įrom left: Marianne Jensen with her son, Axel, Leonard Cohen, an unidentified friend, and married authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift on Hydra in 1960. The monastery at the port will clang its doleful half-hours all through the day and the cats will doze in the sun among the pigeons. Because I have spent so much time immersed in the island of 1960 – the year that the dramas of my novel unfold – it is always a surprise to me that water runs out of taps and there is mains electricity. Although its name might imply water, Hydra is dry but for a handful of sweet wells, and most of the houses still have working cisterns for collecting rainwater, though it’s not essential for drinking these days. In the rainier parts of the year these streets and staircases cascade with water from the mountains, which makes the stones very smooth and too slippery for sandals. Cato, the little street cat who has adopted us, jumps off the wall opposite the supermarket and follows us on through the square, where oranges are ripening on the trees around mounted busts of the island’s great painters. ![]() After a while you learn to sleep through it.Īs we descend via steps into Hydra port, the island’s only town, the scent of white flowers is almost overpowering. ![]() ![]() Though the island is only 10 miles long and most of it is uninhabitable, there are more than 300 churches, most with bells, none of them beautifully rung. On Hydra, the cockerels crow all through the night.
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