So I found my new favorite place in Greece during the first weekend of December: the island of Hydra!

Hydra is a part of the Saronic Islands group and it is actually located pretty close to the mainland.  Compared to the Cycladic (think Santorini, Aegina and Syros) and Dodecanese (think Rhodes), Hydra and its surrounding islands are more green and lush looking.  The big catch about Hydra, though, is that no cars are allowed on the island.  The streets aren’t even designed for driving on (save a random trash truck here and there).  The port forms a horseshoe around the ocean and the main village actually escalates up into the hills.  It was the most picturesque Greek village ever, and I nearly died when we walked off of our Flying Dolphin boat.

Hiking was certainly in order (Hydra is known for awesome hiking paths, which was my main incentive for going) but first I demanded that we drop off our backpacks somewhere.  We went into this trip as spontaneously as possible (very nearly booked our boat tickets the night before we left for Hydra and again the day we left for Piraeus) so we obviously had no hotel room ready for us.  We wandered the streets of Hydra town (worse things have happened, believe me) for an hour or two and finally settled upon this place called the “Hotel Hippocampi” or something of the sort, which meant “Seahorse Hotel” in Greek.  The owner of the place was hilarious, and though the room was a little steep in price (60 Euro a night), he promised us free breakfast in the morning.

Our stuff safely stowed away, we took to the streets again where no cars = more donkeys.  Again, Hydra is known for its prominent use of donkeys as transportation vehicles, so we saw a good number of them tied up and walking around.  We stopped at a small taverna that seemed open (we hadn’t eaten really since breakfast around 7:00 that morning before catching our boat out) and had an amazing lunch of toasted bread, fava, cucumber-tomato salad and some delicious chicken dish in a sundried tomato cream sauce.  The woman serving us, obviously sensing we were foreigners, brought out slices of halva (a Greek dessert made with flour, sugar, olive oil, cinnamon and raisins) and told us, “It’s from us.”  I love islands where you get free food simply by being clueless about the area you have stumbled into.

Now fed and watered, Ryan and I decided to be the ambitious freaks we are and begin our hike from one tip of the island to the other at 3:00 p.m.  We really had no idea how long it would take to get there and back, but I had a nagging suspician it was going to take longer than we thought it would.  Nevertheless, I decided to push myself, live in the moment and be a little adventurous.  Every so often I would get nervous and suggest turning around, but Ryan kept me on track and kept making me go forward.  When we seemed to have reach the other point of Hydra, the trail began winding upwards, so we climbed a mountain (basically) and crossed the island to view the ocean on the other side.  It was beautiful.  Breathtaking.

By the time we turned back, the sun was going down and it was getting chillier.  My fears had come true and we were walking back down this somewhat desloate island path in the dark.  Luckily, my mom had given me a really powerful little flashlight keychain before leaving for Greece and I had remembered to bring it, so we stumbled our way home by use of a mini-flashlight.  We returned to the room, collapsed around 6:00 p.m. and slept until about 7:45 when we decided dinner was in order.  That mean consisted of a Greek salad, yiantes (giant white beans oven-cooked in tomato sauce) and the biggest prawns (as in shrimp) I had ever seen (though stil with the tails, shells, feet and heads on… mmm, delicious!).  I drank too much win, I am the first to admit that, but it was delicious and red and I had to be somewhat helped back to the hotel room.  Regardless, it helped me sleep, and I woke up without a hangover or even a headache, so I guess I didn’t overdue it as much as I thought I did.

The next morning, true to his word, our hotel guy made us a huge breakfast. Yogurt and honey, toasted sesame seed encrusted bread, coffee and the biggest omelette ever.  We checked out (we were the owner’s last customers of the season, so he was eager to have us out… at least he was still friendly about the whole thing) and bought our Flying Dolphin tickets for later.  Today we planned to hike to the tallest peak on the island, so with a limited time schedule, we booked it up the trails.  It was even more beautiful that day because it was sunnier, and when we reached the monastery at the top, we collapsed and dined on a lunch of pistachios, dried dates, mandarin oranges and a gnarly big dark chocolate bar that Ryan had procured earlier on the island of Tilos (big shrimp, big egg dishes, big chocolate bars… I’m beginning t see a trend!)

Down the mountain we went, sweaty, tired but extremely fulfilled.  We shopped a little at the portside shops for gifts until our boat arrived.  The ride back was a bit hellish… the waters were choppy, I felt sick, and we were delayed in returning to the mainland because of the weather.  As we pulled into Piraeus, Ryan received a call from our housing director Joanna telling us not to take the metro back to Syntagma like we normally do.  Rioting had apparently broke out it was not safe.  She recommended a taxi, but still on our adventurous high, we decided to take the metro in and get off before Syntagma Square.  As we later found out, we walked straight through some of the areas that the American Embassy was warning people not to walk through, but nothing happened, and we assumed we were safe the entire time, munching on salted almonds and roasted chestnuts as we made our way back to Pagrati.