Hydra

No motor vehicles at all

Private cars, motorbikes and scooters are banned on the island. There are a handful of municipal service vehicles — a refuse truck, an ambulance — and nothing else. Bicycles are restricted too.

The result is that the loudest thing in Hydra town is the harbour.

Mules, and hand-carts

Freight moves off the boats onto mules and donkeys and up the stepped lanes, and that is not a display for visitors: it is the island's logistics. There are several hundred working animals. Luggage to a hotel goes the same way, which is worth knowing if you are staying and travelling heavy.

What that means for a visit

Everything is on foot and much of it is uphill on stone steps. Water taxis run round the coast to the beaches, which is how most people reach them. It also means the island is difficult for anyone with limited mobility — the harbour front is flat and almost nothing else is.

The harbour

A deep natural anchorage ringed by grey stone mansions — archontika — built by the shipowning families who made Hydra rich in the eighteenth century, when the island's merchant fleet was one of the largest in the Mediterranean and later fought the war of independence. The whole town is a protected settlement, which is why nothing is rendered or painted white; the stone is the point.

The walk to Kamini and Vlychos

West along the coast path from the harbour, forty minutes to Kamini and another twenty to Vlychos: two small settlements with tavernas and swimming off the rocks. It is flat, it is the best walk on the island and it takes you out of the day-tripper zone in fifteen minutes.

The climb to the monasteries

Up the stepped lanes and out of the back of the town, an hour or so of steady climb to Profitis Ilias monastery with the whole island below you. It is hot work in summer and it is the only real hike here.

Swimming

There is no sandy beach in the town. People swim off the rocks at Spilia just west of the harbour and at Hydronetta below the cannons, and take water taxis to Bisti and Agios Nikolaos further round. Bring something to sit on.

The cruise

Ten to twelve hours, leaving Piraeus in the morning, calling at three islands with lunch and often live music on board, back in the evening. About ninety minutes ashore at each stop. As a day on the Saronic Gulf with someone else steering, it is a pleasant and well-organised thing.

As a way of seeing Hydra it gives you the harbour front and no more.

The scheduled fast craft

About ninety minutes each way from Piraeus, several sailings a day in season. You get five or six hours on the island, which is enough for the coast walk, a swim, a long lunch and the harbour in the late afternoon after the cruise boats have gone. This is the version we would book.

Or stay the night

Hydra empties at about four in the afternoon and refills with a different, quieter crowd. An overnight is the only way to see the town without day-trippers in it, and the island is expensive enough that it is a considered decision rather than an obvious one.

And the strike caveat

Ferry strikes are called by the seamen's federation separately from any general strike and can be announced a day or two ahead. If your Hydra day is fixed and non-refundable, the strikes page explains where the notices appear.