Hydra Island

The main town of Hydra Island, as seen from our boat.

So, my six days in Greece equaled out to an amazing trip! I'm going to break it into a few blog posts, hopefully by topic. So... first, we arrived on Thursday evening, took the bus into town, found our accomodation, and wandered around the neighborhood for awhile. I took the following picture, across what we later found out was the historical ruins of Kerameikos, a former cemetery and part of the sacred way. Anyway, beautiful! Then we headed off to bed, a big day ahead of us.

The Acropolis above the Kerameikos ruins

The next day it was up at 0630, getting dressed quickly, and then off to Pireaus, the port of Budapest. There we hopped onto a flying island and headed to Hydra Island, a brief 1'40" away. The flying dolphin was such an experience: they lift off the water, so the trip is very fast and smooth. Just after 0930, we arrived to the sun cresting Hydra's largest hill. The rest I'll tell with pictures...

The Flying Dolphin, lifted above the water.

In Hydra there are no cars. Instead, locals and tourists alike use donkeys to carry themselves and their belongings. While waiting for clients the donkeys stand together in the port, chewing cactus.

In Athens the oranges were blooming, the smell of their flowers overpowering the smell of city and following us everywhere. On Hydra, some trees had already yielded fruit. These are some lemons on a tree in a public square a little bit off the coast.

Hydra was absolutely covered in "communal" cats. They seemed to be stray, and it also seemed that everyone put out food and little kitty shelters for them. Here, one enjoys his prime spot under a tree in the sun, only slightly bemused by the Americans taking his photo.

A sunny street on the walk up the hill.

This bench was covered with wet paint. There was no signage. My purple purse now has a rather interesting blueish splotchy pattern on it, which is actually kind of cool. It was less cool on Lyla's jeans, and she told the bench how she felt about it. A minute after this photo was taken, an old man tried to sit on the bench and we stopped him with the international language of "Nenenenenene! Ne!"

A dolphin mosaic in one of the squares.

The water was insanely blue, and made a great contrast to the green hills.

Relaxing a little bit after climbing the hill.

Greece was covered in flowers, especially these beautiful red poppies.

Ah yes, the self portrait.

A very friendly donkey in someone's yard. We fed him clover.

At the top of the city's hill is a cemetery, dotted with small graves, each bearing a glass-enclosed dedication to the deceased with photos and personal effects. I felt it would be rather disrespectful to photograph it (despite the fact that there was also a horse grazing in the cemetery), and instead chose this angle of the town from just inside the cemetery gates.