Aside from Santorini and Mykonos, I think Hydra is one of the most popular islands in Greece. It’s certainly beautiful, but a little too chock full of tourists off the high speed ferries from Athens for us to need more than a day there to enjoy.

There’s no question that it has its charms. The main town harbor rises steeply on all sides and is filled with cute shops, tavernas, and cool buildings. We immediately started climbing up to the house where Leonard Cohen lived for seven years in the 1960’s. It’s still a private residence (owned by his son), but we could at least stand outside and pay homage.

Leonard Cohen’s house, now owned by his son

The cats of Hydra, of course, didn’t disappoint.

Hydra is famous for being a car-free island. Historically they used donkeys for hauling gear. These days the donkeys are hauling ridiculously large suitcases for tourists. A much better form of transportation are motorized carts/wheelbarrows that we saw popping up. Give the donkeys a break, please.

It was a beautiful place to visit, but it was hot, and there were simply too many people around after a while. We enjoyed our time there, but were happy to take an early ferry back to Ermioni, where we could sit with a quiet drink and hang out with the locals.

One thing we did later was watch the 2019 documentary “Marianne and Leonard”. Marianne Ihlen was Leonard Cohen’s main muse. They met and they lived together in Hydra for several years. Their story is quite sad (then again his music is pretty melancholy), but the movie was beautifully made and we enjoyed it all the more having just visited.