Hydra Notes

  The Terrace Restaurant offers many excellent dishes, and many steps. On a night like tonight the view is utterly spectacular though. The port filled with rousing music, the silhouettes of victorious dancers projected up the hill, a ship destroyed and set on fire and breathtaking fireworks lighting up the whole town in an extravaganza celebrating of one of Hydras favourite sons and key figure in the Greek War of Independence (1821–30), Admiral Miaoulis. Admiral Miaoulis (briefly Vice Admiral). Trader, turned mercenary, turned great military tactician reminds, me a little of Hans Solo.

Preparations are underway! Not sure what N stands for though?

GESTALT presented by Dimitrios Antonitsis   Beautiful setting for art. Decadent scultpures by Daniel Silver.     Bold shapes and colours in perspex.   Appealing and revealing works by Eugenia Apostolou, "Crushed"   As a child we wonder what will happen when we break something, as adults we wonder why everything is broken. Thought provoking pieces by Vahakn Arslanian.

Mid-Summer Evening Sun. Pebbles by Anon.

Tiny caterpillar lands on my book, or perhaps it's a book worm. Reading early Greek Philosophy. Much of the science they got right, strangely enough. Stranger still, some ancient Greeks believed women came from the warm part of the womb and men the cold, and that is why men are hairier .

Mid-Summer and it's noisy!

This donkey (maybe a mule) has a goatee. Maybe he is into acid jazz.

Englishman needs his cup of tea. Incredibly hot today.

...except when there's a dog on the prowl.

Doesn't talk much. Beetle    You show no emotion.    You are just beetle.    In your armour    and your quest for tree sap,    or whatever it is that you eat,    ...       and beetle sex.  

Fine food and an incredible view. Technè is the place to relax.

Stay here for long enough and you'll witness one of the infrequent but dramatic storms. Rain pouring down from the mountain turns the streets into gentle petal carrying waterfalls culminating in white water rapids nearer the port. Pull up a chair and a beer and watch the fun.

The fish have many fans. Get to the port around 8-9am and see what you can get straight off the boat.

The Pirate Bar is the hip place to be on Hydra. Great music, endless stream of characterful clientele, charming hosts and great staff.

Hydra contains such contrasting people. Yaughtsmen, Donkeymen, Island Hoppers, Priests, Newlyweds, Artists, Thinkers, Foodies, Property Developers, Fishermen. Somehow they all live alongside each other without conflict and content. Some of this I put into a poem while enjoying the view: Hydra: Port of intertwined passages Clopping donkeys The thick smell of hard work Bobbing fishing boats, peeling paint Flecks of light dancing Glistening yachts Baby bouncers, riders brandishing toys Cruciform masts dot the bay Empty Monasteries dot the hills Souvenirs laid out like sweets Bejewelled boutiques empty pretty Hulking rusting supply boat Weighed down with cat food Complaining locals bemoaning mistaken orders Trolleys barging along the quay Marble stairs Behind shades Furtive pupils dart As miss after miss walks by Evening creeps up the hill A child whose bedtime's has passed Thinkers, dozers, snappers, wondering couples Sharing the...

Art at the old slaughterhouse. Kara Walker oppresses and confuses us with powerful imagery and justaposition .   The mediterranean the beautiful and beguiling backdrop. We are told we must obey the signalling fist to make sugar so our overbares gain more of its energy and wallow in it's sticky fly dotted mountainous abundance, All the time workers drowning seeking the industrial utopia of sugar.

  A tiny kitten hiding in a wall watching passers by. Everything is new and strange to the cat. To the tourists on the island everything is strange an old apart from the kitten who is cute and fluffy.