Hydra Restaurants

 

We only ate at two restaurants (tavernas – TABEPNA) for dinner while in Hydra: ZEΦYPOS (see business card) and Osteria (sorry lost this business card). Both were hosted by entertaining ladies – full of energy and concern about how we liked our meal. At ZEΦYPOS there are items already made (like casseroles) that you can get or you can ask for something else to be cooked. At Osteria, all items are made to order. AND, the thing we learned is to ask what they have and what’s good. We encountered many times that menus have a lot more on them that they have on hand. There were a number of cafes (different than tavernas in that they don’t really serve a full dinner) open and some other tavernas, but we alternated between these two and were happy (as it seemed that the locals do because we were on the same restaurant schedule with some of them). There is also a little souvlaki place across the street from ZEΦYPOS that we were happy with for lunch.

Hydra Hikes

For hiking on Hydra we took inspiration from this link as to what was possible. We found the instructions a bit too detailed but did use them just for overall guidance, following our instincts instead on decisions about what paths to take.



Hike 1. Up to Monastery Profiti Ilia (Μ. ΠΡΟΦ ΗΛΙΑ) – minor hike. This was a late afternoon hike of about 4 hours so we didn’t push beyond the Monastery. It’s a tough little climb but you are awarded with some great views of the harbor. The two monks there have refreshments, but it’s a nice touch to bring a little gift like some sweets. We found the instructions in the “link” above confusing and started from the cemetery and still found our way.



Hike 2. East to Moni Zourva (ΜΟΝΗ ΖΟΥΡΒΑ), though we never visited the monastery. It’s just shy of the east tip of the island. Instead, we went down to the small bay nearby for a swim (okay ½ of us went for a swim). There is something like 650+ steps down and it’s not exactly a beach but you get into the water. As an alternative, you can take a water taxi (25 Euros) there and walk back to town. This roundtrip hike took us 7 hours including a stop for lunch and swimming.



Hike 3. West to near Bisti (ΜΠΙΣΤΙ) where we were pretty close to the end of island. We ended up on a hill at the end of the island with a 300 degree view. There were some ruins there but don’t know the exact name of it. The path was fairly well used so we weren’t breaking new ground. This roundtrip hike took us 8 hours. 

The fourth day on Hydra, we explored more nooks and crannies of the town and went to the Hydra history museum.

Hello Hydra

We both woke at 5 am unable to sleep in our Athens’ hotel and decided to go for the 8am hydrofoil (Hellenic Seaways) to Hydra. What a welcome relief to pull into Hydra’s harbor around 10am and leave the noise of Athens behind. We checked into our hotel and then had most of the day for exploring. There is only one map that we could find and is the defacto “island” map and is shown below. It has a pretty good layout of the towns (not many) and roads (not many) on the island. It doesn’t really give the hiking trails, but it’s a small island, you can’t get too lost, can you? One side of the map is the whole island (detail shown below) and the other side is the main town, Hydra. The map can be bought at any of the shops along the harbor.