This morning we had breakfast at our stone house hotel and then we were on the road to Metochi, the harbor town where we would leave our car and take the 20-30 minute boat trip to Hydra, an island off the coast.
Deiann and I both tend toward seasickness so I did a lot of research early on in the planning of our trip and found out we could take this 20 to 30 minute ferry to Hydra instead of a 2 1/2 hour ferry from Pareous which is the port of Athens. I had my acupressure bands and Dan had her Dramamine and we were prepared for the journey. I waited until the very last second until the boat owner was putting up the pier before I boarded the boat boat. We rode on top of the deck outside and the trip was trouble-free and fairly calm, breezy and uneventful.
The approach to Hydra is into the main town and it's a beautiful little port with all kinds of quaint and charming buildings. We watched people jumping off the rocks into the beautiful aquamarine sea as we approached, and the port was full of yachts and small pleasure craft.
We had directions to our next place that told us that it was a 22 minute walk straight up hill on a crooked and curving back street. We knew we were in for a walk upon arrival so we lightened our backpacks by leaving a lot of our extra unnecessary items in the car back in the Metochi. We disembarked, put on our packs and grabbed our extra bags and we put our heads down and started walking up the hill once we found our street. The day was brutally hot and muggy as we have come to expect. It didn't make the trip anymore comfortable that the street was in full sun at midday. After walking for a period of time I stopped a stranger and asked him if he knew the location of our hotel. He wasn't familiar with it so we trudged on. Several minutes later we found a shady spot and asked the next passerby about the hotel. " it's downhill past the supermarket on the left". Supermarket? DOWNHILL? Bummer. I was probably standing directly across from it when I asked directions of the first guy.... The problem was the map's quoted walking time.... Not 22 minutes.
We found our accommodations, an apartment at the top of the hotel. We chose this place because of the sea view from our attic room. The owner really knows how to run a place and keep the people happy. He stocks two large bottles of water in the fridge for you when you arrive, as many clean towels as you need for the beach, and if it's time to check out and you still want to go to the beach, he has a shower available for you after your swim before you get back on your departure boat. All thoughtful little extras for travelers.
After settling in we put on our bathing suits and went for a walk into town. We spent some time window shopping and Deiann found some jewelry that she was possibly interested in purchasing has a souvenir. We promised to come back to the shop later in the evening when the owner was there. She was the woman who could make Deiann a special price offer on the jewelry.
Some dark clouds had rolled in and we were hoping if we went to a few more shops that when we came out the weather would have cleared up so that we could go to the beach. No such luck because by the time we came out of the final shop the weather had turned for the worse and we could see lightning off shore. Smart enough not to go in the water during a lightning storm, we walked to the top of the hill and sat on a bench and watched the storm roll by. Temperatures cooled slightly and the wind blew from all directions blowing our hair around and cooling us off.
As the storm calmed down we made our way back to the main harbor area and sat in a waterfront café for a cocktail (and a milkshake for me ;-) ) We enjoyed some time people watching and I Face timed with Tom for a few minutes before we headed back to the jewelry shop. Deiann and the shop owner agreed on a price and she is taking home two beautiful pieces of jewelry that are both very Greek in their own way.
Deiann found a restaurant recommended by my friend Rick Steves in his Greece book. We decided to try it out because he recommended their Meze (which are hors d'oeuvres) and we planned to make a meal from them. We stopped for us directions from two different shop on earth before we found the restaurant. We were seated after a short wait and we placed our order with the waitress. They brought our food right away but told us that the main item that we wanted to try was sold out so they brought us Tzatziki instead. We like Tzatziki but things went downhill from there. At one point the electricity went out in the entire restaurant which was kind of funny, and we sat in the dark surrounded by people eating by the light of their cell phones perched on their water bottles until 20 minutes later the restaurant finally got out candles. They never brought us our wine, they never brought us our watermelon and we had to ask for the check multiple times over an hour period of time before we finally decided to get up and try to pay downstairs on our way out the door. The entire time we waited for our check there were multiple parties waiting to be seated so they were losing business continuing to make us wait.
We went back to our room and enjoyed a glass of wine from our own bottle outside on our balcony overlooking the beautiful night time view of Hydra harbor.
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