Great seamanship shaped Hydra’s free spirit 

Learn how tiny Hydra, birthplace of five prime ministers, conquered the seas and prospered from the 18th century by trading even with the Americas. Or how Hydrean ships fed Spain and France during the Napoleonic Wars by breaking English blockades.   

Visit the small yet rich History and Archives Museum, plus other museums and the Mansions of old Captains ringing the harbour.  

Bow to the canons looming over the vastness of the sea and listen for the 1821 Greek Revolution Chief Admiral Hydrean Andreas Miaoulis leading the struggle for freedom from just there.

Get to love them   

Retreat from our noise-ridden “normality” on this car-free island. Slow down, and enjoy.  

Hydra was sustainable before sustainability was invented as a term. It depends on “equine power” (be it donkeys, mules or horses) for cultivating the fields and for the transportation of people, goods, luggage and building material up the hilly town.  

If you are adventurous enough, these stoic and friendly animals will even carry you to rugged spellbinding routes.

Inspiration for wordsmiths and artists 

Every bit of this rugged landscape has been fertilised by literary wizards and artists who have turned Hydra into their muse over the decades. In the 1930s, it was the Greek Nobel-winning poet Giorgos Seferis, authors Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrel and Patrick Leigh Fermor and local painter Nikos Hadzikyriakos Gkikas. 

Hydra’s bohemian artistic society thrived in the 60’s, including writers Charmian Clift, George Johnston, Axel Jehnsen and most prominently musician and author Leonard Cohen. For Cohen, Hydra was his second home. Not only he created here, but also met the love of his life Norwegian Marianne Ihlen. Their long and dramatic love story that inspired Cohen’s masterpiece “So Long, Marianne” still echoes across the island.

Relaxed and rejuvenating 

Enjoy a long coffee under the port’s emblematic tower clock. Eat or have ouzo at a tavern by the sea or at a secluded square crowned with bougainvilleas (and feed some fish bones to the cats). Have a drink at legendary “Pirate” or some other chill- out bar. 

Hike on one of the paths and trails -the island is honeycombed with them- to enjoy a bird’s view and lose yourself in the imposing rugged, green landscapes leading to hidden valleys, monasteries and secret beaches.    

Dive from the rocks in the crystal clear waters of Spilia or Hydronetta beaches, just by the port. From there, stroll to the picturesque fishing port of Kamini and further to the traditional Vlychos settlement and Plakes Vlychou beach. 

Feel those water splashes teasing your face by taking the boat to the remote yet most beautiful beaches of the island, Bistis and Agios Nikolaos.

Aesthetic perfection 

Let your eyes rest on beauty even from the disembarking point as you take in the view of the entire Hydra town with the pitched-roofed stone houses and snaky streets, climbing steeply in exemplary amphitheatrical symmetry from the water’s edge. 

Arguably the most complete architectural unity in the Aegean, Hydra attends to detail like a movie setting (and, not surprisingly, it has been used as one). Its architectural lines’ austerity is eased to a light, welcoming clarity under the generous Mediterranean sun and the reflections of the sea.

As Hydra lover author Henry Miller put it: “Aesthetically is perfect, the very epitome of that flawless anarchy which supersedes, because it includes and goes beyond, all the formal arrangements of the imagination.”  

Multi-faced and vibrant  

Experience the major Miaoulia festival in June, with arts and sports events culminating in the spectacular reenactment of a sea battle and the burning of a Turkish flagship.       

Enjoy in situ, art works in the built-on-rock- Old “Sfageia” (slaughterhouses), created by internationally renowned artists. Visit exhibitions at Sahtouris Mansion, Hydra Workshop and Admiral Miaoulis’s “red house.”  

On Good Friday, follow the solemn Epitaphios procession of flower-decorated wooden representations of Christ’s bier, ritually carried even in the sea.      

From regattas and hill-running to concerts and even a biennial conference on mules and donkeys, events flourish in Hydra. Plus, in just a couple of hours you can find yourself in Peloponnese, attending a Greek tragedy in its original place; the imposing ancient theater of Epidaurus.