This weekend we (I’m already using the proprietary “we”) went to this perfectly picturesque little island in the Saronic Gulf, Hydra. It’s a film set of an island, formerly an important ship-building center, a tiny port village with 18-19th Century buildings. Jules Dassin’s Phaedra and Jean Negulesco’s Boy on a Dolphin (with Sophia Loren, her character also named “Phaedra”) were filmed here. There are no cars, or even bikes, although they do have mules for hire. Actually, if they allowed bicycles they’d probably have to put up guardrails, of which now there are nearly none, just sheer drop offs to that beautiful blue sea.
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We swam in that amazing crystal clear water, ate delicious local seafood, took long walks around the island punctuated by our occasional dips into the sea. Stavros is the ideal flotation device, bobbing around without even having to tread water. The village was celebrating their involvement in the war of independence from Ottoman rule, which culminated in the burning of a boat in the harbor, fireworks spewing out from the boat and into the sky, histrionic music blaring, everyone in period costumes. There was dancing and much merriment.
