I’m back on the idyllic, traffic-free Greek Isle of Hydra. Today is our first light day after a week of TV production. We’re meeting at 10 am. Wishing I could sleep longer, I’m wide awake at 6:45. I picked up some ugly oranges on the way to my hotel last night. The oranges were so unsightly I almost didn’t buy them. On my dresser, they look like Van Gogh’s last meal. Enjoying one, I’m reminded that in Europe, ugly means tasty.
Standing in front of my window, pushing open the shutters, I’m greeted by a cool, almost mountain breeze pouring through my window on this May Day. I stretch while enjoying the view. My legs are strong but my back is stiff.
A clutter of red-tiled roofs has the texture of Triscuits. In fact, they look like a sloppy pile of Triscuits tumbling up the hill away from the harbor. High above, at the horizon, a sun ray slashes from behind a hill, across a ravine, strangely obliterating a hill-capping monastery in a good morning glare.
Seven o’clock brings a chorus of tinny church bells. The clang of bells, which sound like dinner triangles on a cowboy ranch, seems to call the barnyard awake: dogs, roosters, a million baby birds cry for breakfast, and old burros snort…clearing their sinuses. Pigeons coo, sounding like owls or perhaps vice versa. A black cat prances nimbly across a roof.
I trace the route Anne and I took just seven months ago. Intending to take a lazy stroll around the block from this same hotel, we ventured up and up…succumbing to a strangely powerful pull of intrigue. We were drawn higher and higher, up to the top of Hydra town. Descending over a saddle, we followed the concrete flash flood bed through more Triscuit-roofed houses to a pocket-sized harbor of a tiny neighboring village. From there we watched the sun set through cloudy ouzo in tall glasses as a rock at sea, capped by a white church, became silhouetted and busy boats laced together the Aegean world.
It was there, on that same sunset perch the next night, that I decided to come back in Spring of ‘08 to make an Athens TV show. A show focusing only on Athens wouldn’t quite do it for me. But Hydra, just two hours away by jet boat, rounds out Athens as both a great destination and a great TV script.
I lean slowly to the right, hold it…creak slowly to the left, hold it. Then I let my vertebrae tumble like an ancient column in an earthquake, until my head passes my knees. Standing tall as I can, I inhale that waking village ambience knowing that, in a few hours, the sounds of children playing will be added to the audio mix. After this salutation to Hydra, I’m ready for a Greek island day.
i love the way you write, rick. the image of “van gogh’s last meal” just made my day. thanks!
I wish you had a one week trip to Athens with one day excursions to Delphi, Nauplion and a whole day on Hydra….two weeks is way to long for me to be away…Hopefully you will have something by next year…Cheers
Hey Rick, speaking of TV shows… just wondering, when we can expect a new episode of “Rick Steve’s Europe”?
Hydra sounds lovely. Happy travels.
Rick, your Hydra post brought back wonderful memories of my first trip to Europe in 1984. Out of 17 countries in 60 days (one of those packed college student tours), Hydra was one of my favorite places. I remember sunbathing on one the huge rocks by the harbor, just letting the magic of the Mediterranean wash over me. Someday I hope to return there with my husband . . . thanks for the memories.
Plush, vivid, beautiful. Your descriptions make me feel like I’m there.
Writing descriptive prose can be like walking off the boardwalk at Yellowstone: If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ve lost your foundation–not to mention your audience–and fallen through into hot water. You have not made that misstep. I’ll never get to that town, but your description just got me close. I came as close as I ever will to that singular experience you so wonderfully described. Thanks for sharing it.
We were in Hydra last week. It’s a perfect day trip from Athens. My wife and I also felt the intrigue of climbing higher through the maze of small passageways to find out what was coming next around the bend. Eventually we were greeted with a viewpoint of the picturesque town and rocky enclosed bay beneath us. It was a perfect relaxing day.
I would love to go to the Greek isles. It sounds great. But beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
We arrived at the City of Rhodes, on the Island of Rhodes, riding the SS City of Rhodes, and while the SS City of Rhodes is not too great, the real City of Rhodes is outstanding! We have visited or driven past a thousand towns and cities that are, or were surrounded by a wall. Believe me, of that thousand, Rhodes ranks near the top as a place that must be visited. Centuries ago this was the place from which pilgrims visited the Holy Land. The Colossus of Rhodes (built in 282 BC), stood, we are usually told, with one foot on each side of the harbor. Other references authoritatively insist it stood beside, not astride, the harbor. In 226 BC, an earthquake crashed the Colossus. During an Arab invasion in AD 653, they sold the remains as scrap metal — it had laid there nearly 900 years. The USA has been here 230 years, so the scrap laid there three times as long as our country has existed.
Rick,Have been to Hydra and it was wonderful, you brought back many memories of that wonderful country…p.s. The Island of Rhodes was voted top choice for Europe..found in this articlehttp://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL0128533020080501
p.s. an interesting article from NY Times on anyone planning on visiting Greece…http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/travel/04hours.html…
I spent several days in Hydra back in July of 2000 having sailed in from Athens. What a wonderful place..I wish I was there to have dinner harborside again. Enjoy…
When I saw your headline about Hydra, the first thing I thought of were the sounds in the morning. You named them all just as I remember them, except the donkeys were braying and wore bells, which added to the general cacophony. Thanks for a great memory!
They way your write is so romantic. Your words paint such pretty and vivid picture of your experiences. I almost feel like I’m there, too. I sure wish anyway! Thanks for the inspiration. I love the way you compared the unusual oranges to artwork.
Rick, your ‘ugly oranges’ were simply honest, natural Greek oranges. It takes Americans to dye their oranges in order to make them look ‘better’.
Rick, I loved Hydra too. It was one of my favorite places on our tour. No cars is so refreshing. I loved the kitties and the burros. There was an older guy at breakfast every morning at out hotel. He told me he has been coming to Hydra for three months a year for the last 30 years. Lucky bastard.