Hydra (Day 2)

We had a great night sleep and woke up to a beautiful blue sky day.  The hotel provides breakfast, so we went down to eat.  It was a delicious spread that filled our plates and bellies which is particularly important today since we are going for a longer walk around Hydra today.  There is a 10 mile loop I would have loved to do, but we didn't wake up earlier enough for that long of a walk.  That is OK...we will do the loop that Rick Steves suggests in his book which should be plenty.

To start out, we headed down to the harbor. What a beautiful day...a perfect day for a walk.

We started up the walking path along the north coast of Hydra.  We first arrived at the first cafe outside of town that is right at the town beach.

We mentioned the beach in yesterday's blog as we had a view of it across the way.  Here it is a bit closer now.  Being a blue sky day, there are actually people hanging out on the "beach."  It seems Greece has a rocky coastline.  What makes a beach here (concrete slab with a ladder down to the water) is much different than our definition.  Maybe we will try out one of these "beaches" during our stay here in Greece, but today isn't the day.

As we continued along the coast, the views kept coming and coming.  How amazingly beautiful.

After about 15 minutes of walking, we arrived in the small village of Kaminia with a harbor housing small fishing boats....oh, and some donkeys.

Further on we reached Kaminia Castello Beach which at first looks very nice, but it isn't sandy, it is pebbly.

We walked a bit more and arrived to Vlychos and yet another beach.  This one looked inviting and I considered going in.  We walked down to it, but again, it was made of small rocks and pebbles with rocks under the water just off the beach.  Greeks must be rugged people to use these beaches.

We could have kept walking further, but we decided to head back to town.  Luckily, we didn't have to take the same route back, we could take a walking path that led across the island back to the main town allowing us to do a loop.  This was called the Hydra-Kaminia High Road.  This route did not disappoint with nice views along the way,

Finally, after two hours of walking for four miles, we arrived back in town.  Since the sky is blue today, we decided to head back up to the lookout point and take more photos.  Oh...we did stop and share a bottle of beer and a tuna sandwich first.

Wow...what an amazing island.

Incredible photos...right?  It was definitely worth going back up there today.  We climbed back down and went back to the hotel for a couple of hours before heading out for dinner.

Remember Angelo, from Blame the Sun Brewery, in Athens.  He sent us to an incredible restaurant in Athens.  Well, when we told him we were going to Hydra he told us to go to Giasemi Restaurant, which of course we did.  It did not disappoint.  The food tasted so fresh and homemade.

The first dish was eggplant & tomatoes.  It sounds so simple, and was so amazing.  How could something with such simple ingredients taste so good?!?

Next, I ordered fish and Tim ordered meatballs.  On the side we had tomatoes stuffed with rice.  Again, simple dishes with simple ingredients that tasted so incredible.  This might be our best meal in Greece so far.

We were full and tired from all the walking today, but we saw a walking path that lead up and for some reason we decided to take it.  We were rewarded with nice views along the way.

And...at the top....was a cemetary. 

We walked though the cemetary to the other end and found a road that lead back into town.

Speaking of town...we mentioned that there were donkeys all around town and the island, well, there are also cats.  Not just some cats, but supposedly there are 4,000 cats roaming Hydra.  I tried to greet and pet every one of the 4,000, but came up a bit short.

Here is a collage of some of the cats we saw during our 2 days on Hydra.

Anyway, back in town we stopped at a pub on the harbor, had a beer, and went back to the hotel.  Tomorrow we head back to Athens on the ferry, but the ferry isn't until 1 PM, so we can sleep in and have a relaxing morning.  Until then...