Peek into Leonard Cohen’s Greek island retreat on a visit to charming Hydra, the place the one mode of transport is DONKEY
- Leonard Cohen spent six years on Hydra – one of many lesser recognized Greek islands
- It’s a two-hour ferry trip from Athens and has a inhabitants of simply 3,500 individuals
- Through the years many have fallen for Hydra however it stays a well-kept secret
In contrast to Elvis’s Graceland and The Beatles’ Liverpool, Hydra just isn’t a shrine to Leonard Cohen.
The Canadian ‘prophet of doom’ singer lived right here – on and off – for six years along with his Norwegian girlfriend Marianne, however there isn’t a Cohen path or plaques commemorating his favorite bars or the charming hilltop home nonetheless owned by his household.
As an alternative, this lovely, rugged mountainous island (pop 3,500) goes about its harmonious enterprise. The one mode of transport is by donkey.
Fishing boats moored within the harbour in Hydra City with the island’s hills behind
On the quayside a platoon of asses await incoming vacationers and take them to small accommodations tucked hither and thither.
Fortress partitions, canons and multi-coloured stone homes creep up the hills on both sides of Hydra harbour, whereas fishing boats bob within the bay.
Leonard Cohen lived on Hydra for six years
‘Constructing is allowed solely on the location of an previous home, so nothing will ever change very a lot,’ says Hilda, my hostess on the Phaedra Resort. I take a stroll to Kiafa, the oldest township on the island, excessive above the harbour with views of the neighbouring Peloponnese throughout the Aegean.
Later, I cease for supper on the Techne Restaurant & Social, the place I get into dialog with Horst, a middle-aged German who has simply returned from his night ritual – swimming bare beneath the close by cliffs. Like Cohen and numerous others he has fallen below Hydra’s spell. These embrace Sophia Loren, who first got here right here in 1956 to movie Boy On A Dolphin.
She performed a Hydriot sponge diver at a time when the island’s financial system trusted the sponge trade. Loren regarded good within the film; Hydra regarded sensational – and the likes of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Cohen had been on their means. You may attain Hydra from Athens on a two-hour ferry. As soon as there, it appears one million miles away from the Greek capital – and that is half its attraction.