The Erechtheion sits illuminated on the Acropolis. The Tower of the Winds is in the foreground.
February 13
I woke up at 5 a.m. to get the hot water started. The wind was still blowing very hard. I thought that the wind was a little bit calmer than it was the day before, but I was afraid that my impression was just wishful thinking.
Being stuck on the island for another day would absolutely ruin this trip. I stress that it wasn’t a case of us being frustrated with Hydra, because we continued to enjoy the beauty and casual grace of the island. It was also no longer a matter of being inconvenienced because we wouldn’t be able to visit Corinth. The situation was such that if we did not get off Hydra that day, we would have a difficult time making it back to California. The reason for this concern was that we were scheduled to be on a flight to London at 9 a.m on the 14th. However, the first boat from Hydra didn’t get back to Pireaus until 9 a.m. So, if we didn’t get off Hydra on the 13th, we were going to miss our flight to London on the 14th. To complicate matters further, we were due to be on a plane from London to San Francisco at 10 a.m. on the 15th. Thus, getting off of Hydra that day was critical.
Dianne was awake when I got back into the room from turning on the hot water. She was not comforted by the wind’s sound from outside our room. I told her that it was too dark to see the ocean from our room, but that it probably was very choppy. We both got ready and packed in near silence, because each of us knew what it meant if we didn’t get off of Hydra that day.
We left the Hotel Dina just before 6:30 a.m. Dina was already up, and it looked like she was cooking breakfast for her family. We marched down the stairs and toward the harbor. By now, sunlight was starting to fill the sky. As I had speculated, the water was still full of whitecaps. We continued on to the Minoan Lines office, certain that the morning boat would be cancelled. However, the clerk at the office said that the Dolphin was running that morning and would be arriving at 7 a.m. We could scarcely believe our luck. We got the clerk to change our tickets, and ran back to the hotel to get our belongings and pay the bill.
Dina was waiting for us when we arrived. As I had expected, she already knew that the boat was coming. We gathered our suitcases and came back down to pay the bill. The whole transaction was done in such a hurry, that we had no time to reflect on this little place which we called home for five days. But, with the benefit of a few months hindsight, I have to say that the Hotel Dina was a very nice place to stay. While the room was a little primitive, the views were wonderful and the owner was very accommodating to us. I would recommend the Hotel Dina to anyone looking for cheap accommodations on Hydra.
We met up with another couple on the stairs going from Dina’s to the main street. They, too, were carrying luggage. When we made it to the street, we met up with another two travel parties. All of us marched in silence to the dock, struggling with our luggage on the cobblestone streets. I thought the whole scene looked like some strange version of a group of monks processing to morning prayer. The fact that we were all wearing long jackets with hoods over our heads only added to the impression. However, while there may have been prayers being said by the group, they were not prayers for people’s souls, but instead for the boat’s safe arrival.
Eventually, we made it to the dock. Dianne and I stood there with everyone else waiting for the boat. We watched as people from other parts of the town made their way to the dock as well. One such person came up to me and asked (in an accent I didn’t recognize) “’Cuse me? Ut, izz ‘ere a way off ‘is ‘odforsaken island?” I didn’t understand what he said, but Dianne did (she speaks fluent Australian English). She told him that a boat was coming in five minutes. “’Ive Minutes?!!”, he exclaimed and ran back to his hotel. I could see him and his girlfriend/wife busily packing and looking out the window of their room. When his eyes got big, I knew the boat was coming around the cliff. Sure enough, the Dolphin arrived promptly at 7 A.M.
As the boat docked, the man and his wife/girlfriend ran out of the hotel. While she cornered the dockmaster, he came over to me with half-packed luggage and said, “’ould you ‘ook a’ter ‘is?” I interpreted that to mean that he wanted me to watch his luggage while he went back to his girlfriend/wife and tried buying a ticket. I agreed, which got Dianne very nervous. “If it’s a choice between their luggage and getting on this boat, we’re getting on the boat,” she said. I had to agree with her, but I thought that his ticket situation would be resolved. Sure enough, they managed to throw enough money at the dockmaster that he issued them tickets. They retrieved their luggage and boarded right behind us.
The boat pulled away from the dock and set sail for Pireaus (with a stop in Poros). I watched as Hydra disappeared from sight. It was a slightly sad occasion, because Hydra had been such a special place for us. The tranquility and much slower lifestyle were just what we needed on our honeymoon. But, the primary emotion that we felt was relief, because we would be able to make our flights to London and San Francisco. Still, we both expressed the hope that we would be able to visit Hydra again someday.
The ride from Hydra to Pireaus was bumpy, but we still made it on time. As we exited the boat, we were greeted by numerous taxi drivers. I honed in on one of them, who rapidly grabbed our luggage. He asked where we were going. I responded by giving him a card for the Adrian Hotel. He then said it would cost 4,000 drachma. Since this was in the ballpark of taxi fares that Lonely Planet mentioned, I agreed. Soon, we were off to the hotel.
It didn’t take long before we realized that our driver was lost. He had no problem getting us to Syntagma Square. But, the maze of the Plaka seemed to be too much for him. He drove down a couple of streets, but always managed to turn back to Mitropoleos in order to get his bearings and stare at the address on the card. Finally, he started driving west on Mitropoleos. We started cheering when he made it past the cathedral. Emboldened by our enthusiasm, he sped up along the street. We yelled out “here” when he got to the north/south street that would lead us to the Adrian from Mitropoleos. Even though the sign said that it was a one way street, he drove up it the wrong way and put us at the door of the Adrian. We cheered his bravery, and even threw in a 1,000 drachma tip for his daring.
We checked back in to the Adrian and were given a room right next door to the room where we stayed on our initial visit. We quickly unpacked and headed off to Key Tours office to retrieve my sunglasses. It didn’t take long for us to realize that we weren’t in Hydra anymore. The noise and pollution of the cars and motorcycles made us long for the quiet that we were living in just a few hours earlier.
We made it to the Key Tours office. As they promised, my sunglasses were waiting for me to return. I can’t put into words how grateful I was that I was able to recover them. I thought for sure that they’d be part of the Greek landscape when I left them on that bus. But, everything turned out for the best, thanks to the great customer service displayed by the Key Tours staff. They earned a recommendation from me just for their tours. But, the customer service they displayed made them a must-patronize in my book.
It was pretty clear that we couldn’t go to Corinth. But, I figured we could go visit Moni Dafniou, which is noted for the Byzantine artwork that adorns its walls and dome. To get there, we needed to walk back through the Plaka to the Plateia Eleftherias where the buses for Moni Dafniou departed. It also meant walking through the Psiri district, which got a mention in Lonely Planet as a redeveloped area. It seemed like a long, but manageable walk, so we set off.
Psiri turned out to be quite different from other parts of Athens. While Plaka seemed to be a neighborhood and Syntagma was something of a high-rise district, Psiri seemed to be a mid-level market. Everywhere we walked, we passed countless vendors selling groceries, icons, clothes, and other items on the sidewalks. The same thing existed in the Plaka, but it seemed to be more prevalent in the Psiri because the streets were not pedestrian walkways. Thus, we were always dodging merchandise and other walkers. The only good thing about the shopping experience in the Psiri is that sellers weren’t pushing their wares on partially interested customers. That’s probably because the shops in the Psiri sell to locals, while those in the Plaka sell to tourists.
We made it to the Plateia Eleftherias and began looking for the ticket booth selling bus tickets on the Moni Dafniou bus. Our task was complicated by the fact that a lot of buses use the Plateia Eleftherias as a loading point, and a ticket booth may not sell tickets for all the buses that are there. We found that out when we went to one ticket booth and were brusquely pointed in the direction of another. Fortunately, the directions were correct and we were able to buy tickets for the Moni Dafniou bus for 150 drachma each. As we boarded, we asked the driver if the bus went to Moni Dafniou (my anal retentive side was surfacing). He said yes. After about a forty minute drive, the driver pulled up to a stop and yelled out to us “Moni Dafniou.” We were grateful for his announcement, because there’s nothing on the bus or at the bus stop to announce that the Venzini stop is where one needs to go to get to the monastery. Once again, I was impressed with the kindness of the Greek people that we had met.
We walked across the street from the bus station toward the signs that pointed the way to Moni Dafniou. However, we found the whole complex surrounded by cyclone fencing. A sign said that the monastery was undergoing restoration and would be closed to tourists until at least the summer of 2001. I was pretty disappointed. Dianne tried to cheer me up by pointing out the signs that said that another church (the Church of St. Stephen) was just a few feet away. However, all that existed at that site for St. Stephen was the church’s foundation. We only spent about 20 minutes in the Moni Dafniou area, but it was a total waste of time.
The only good thing to come from our wasted trip to Moni Dafniou was that we were able to spend more time shopping in the Plaka than we had originally estimated. And that’s how we spent the rest of the day. We fought off the pushy salespeople and managed to find several bargains on souvenirs that we wanted (it pays to shop around the various stores, and to bargain with the store clerks). We also found some wonderful gyro sandwiches at Savas, on the corner of Ermou and Athinas. The meat actually melted in our mouths. The food was only matched by the price: 700 drachma per gyro. We were so impressed that we went back to Savas in the evening. However, they were out of meat. Instead, we went to a shop on the corner of Adrianou and Kydathineon. They had gyros for about the same price, but they weren’t quite as tasty as the ones at Savas. They were good in a pinch, but I’d still go to Savas first.
We arrived back at the Adrian Hotel in the evening with our arms full of treasures. On the way back, I noticed that the Acropolis was lit up as it was on the evening we arrived. I got my camera and went back outside to snap a couple of pictures of the Erechetheon shining over the city. It seemed like an appropriate image to remember on our last night in Greece.
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