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The hydrofoil slowed its rhythmic pounding on the cobalt waves of the
Saronic Gulf and started its approach into Poros. Our expectations were
mounting: a battered book clutched in my lap promised that entering the narrow
stretch of water separating the Greek island from the Peloponnese mainland was
an otherworldly experience, a "deep dream" from which you never fully
awaken.
"To sail slowly through the streets of Poros is to recapture the
joy of passing through the neck of the womb," Henry Miller wrote in his
1939 book about Greece, The Colossus of Maroussi.
"Let the world have its bath of blood – I will cling to Poros .... That
was a moment which endures, which survives world wars, which outlasts the life
of the planet Earth itself."
My boyfriend and I peered through salt-streaked windows, awaiting our
rebirth. The white-cube houses and small cafés looked pretty enough, but hardly
earth-shattering. Perhaps, we decided, the utter jaw-dropping experience of
sliding by a few feet from the harbour side was somewhat diminished by our
grimy view.
So we ventured on to the tiny deck just as the vessel pulled out again.
The hydrofoil belched exhaust, mingling with the scent of a dozen hastily
puffed cigarettes. On the quay, an irate tourist who mistakenly thought he'd
missed his boat shouted abuse as we pulled away. "Well, it was kind of
cool to be so close to the harbour," my other half said, clearly feeling
the need to console me after I had been promised wonders that surpassed
attaining Nirvana.
It is hard not to be caught up in Miller's enthusiasm. Like today, when
Greece finds itself on the brink of bankruptcy and its people enduring the
harshest austerity measures in Europe, he travelled to Greece at a time of
great turmoil. The country was in the grip of a military dictatorship and the
Second World War loomed. Nevertheless, the American writer – best known for
semi-autobiographical books detailing his erotic adventures in Paris and New
York – found a warmth and great strength in the Greeks in crisis, and during
almost a year there, he produced what he considered to be his best work.
Indeed, it is a book filled with pure joy for a country. Reading it, you
want to tear up your carefully laid holiday plans and find Miller's Greece, an
exuberant place of gods walking the earth, epiphanies on the tombs of warriors,
and characters not just larger than life, but like the colossus of the title.
We didn't have to wait long to find the Greece that stirred Miller to
heights of literary ecstasy. Half an hour out of Poros, the ferry neared our
destination: Hydra Island, in the same Argo-Saronic archipelago. We sailed into
its beautiful crescent harbour, from which whitewashed buildings with shutters
painted every hue of blue spill up the hillside under a spray of bougainvillea.
Strict building codes preserving the architectural purity of the harbour mean
it is little changed from the time Miller sailed in and declared:
"Aesthetically it is perfect."
The real beauty of Hydra is the absence of motorised transport. Cars and
motorcycles are banned from the cobbled streets and the dirt paths that connect
Hydra town to outlying hamlets and beaches. So we arrived clasping an email
from our travel agent which included the intriguing instructions: "There
will be a man with a donkey to meet you when you arrive. His name is Takis."
There were many men with many donkeys, the beasts of burden being the
main form of transport on the rocky island, ferrying everything from the weekly
shop to the island's elder inhabitants. We eventually found Takis, who loaded
up our suitcases and led us up the hill to our apartment, the view of the sea
and harbour increasing in grandeur with each step.
Hydra came pretty close to my perfect holiday island. Days were spent
heading to the different coves, sometimes by foot over pine-forested cliffs, other
days hopping on a small boat. There are three lovely shingle beaches within
walking distance west of Hydra town – Kamini, Vliho and Plakes – each offering
excellent swimming in clear, clean water. Sunbeds and umbrellas are available
for rent, and beachside tavernas offer Greek staples, house wine for as little
as €6 (£5) a litre, and an array of seafood plucked from the waters that
morning. Our daily treat was Hydra squid, its sweet flesh served charred from
the grill with nothing but a hunk of lemon on the side.
Unlike many of the islands of the Cyclades and Aegean clusters, Hydra is
unencumbered by large resorts or sprawling holiday bungalows. Our accommodation
was a lovely one-bedroom apartment up the hill in Hydra town with a huge
terrace overlooking the interior. There are also plenty of B&Bs in the tiny
lanes closer to the harbour, while a handful of grander hotels are hidden away
in restored 18th-century mansions.
But if Hydra is meant to be a tranquil idyll with only birdsong and
church bells to splinter the silence gently each morning, nobody told us about
the island's four-legged inhabitants. On our first morning, we were awoken by
the unbelievably loud braying of a donkey far up the hill, a grating, squawking
noise that travels swiftly down the rocky slopes and into homes across the
town. Then there was the dog barking at his own echo for a good half an hour,
as we sat on the balcony nursing cold glasses of Greek rosé and listening to
the canine cacophony. Compared with the donkeys and the dogs, the island's
thousands of stray cats are relatively unassuming. Their only foible is to hang
around your restaurant table in gangs, eyeing up your seafood dinner.
It was while lazing on the terrace listening to a braying donkey echo
across the valley that I read Miller's description of Mycenae, the ancient
citadel not far away on the Peloponnese mainland. It is said to have been the
home of Agamemnon, one of warriors who led the assault on Troy before incest
and infighting destroyed his ancestral pile. "At Mycenae the gods once
walked the earth, of that there can be no question," Miller wrote.
"It is one of the navels of human spirit, the place of attachment to the
past and of complete severance too. It wears an impenetrable air; it is grim,
lovely, seductive and repellent."
If that intrigued me, his breathless description of entering the tomb of
Agamemnon – where Miller declared he shattered "into a billion splintered
smithereens" and was "done with civilization and its spawn of
cultured souls" – convinced me to extend my stay and follow in his
footsteps straight to the lair of the gods.
So after reluctantly bidding farewell to Hydra (and to my boyfriend, who
had to return home) and taking a circuitous route by bus via Athens, I found
myself in the reception of La Belle Helene hotel with Agamemnon Dassis. He is
the grandson of another Agamemnon (Homeric names are in abundance here), who
back in 1939 served Miller drinks and dinner on the terrace of the very same
hotel.
Today's Agamemnon is feeling the pinch. The economic crisis has kept
many holidaymakers away, and with tourist arrivals to Greece down more than 12
per cent in the first five months of this year, Agamemnon has had to let his
staff go. But La Belle Helene has been open for business since 1885. It was
here that the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann stayed when he made the
landmark excavations that seemed to prove that Homer's writings were based in
fact. Behind frames in the dining room are the guest book entries of everyone
ranging from Jean-Paul Sartre and Virginia Woolf to Himmler and Goebbels, who
ominously visited a few years before the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation. As
Agamemnon says, Greece has been through bad times before: "I think it is
going to come back again, business – it is getting sick, but it never
dies."
Later that day, I headed to the ruins of Mycenae. Like Miller, I stood
alone at Agamemnon's tomb (as it is widely known, despite no solid
archaeological evidence that he was buried there) and finally grasped the
author's awe in the face of such rich history. This is the country that has
given the world so much – at the moment the Olympics spring to mind – but which
has suffered so greatly. Miller's Greece is the one we should be celebrating, a
place, he wrote, where great things happen: "Marvellous good things which
can happen to one nowhere else on earth … Men may go about their puny,
ineffectual bedevilment, even in Greece, but God's magic is still at work and
no matter what the race of man may do or try to do, Greece is still a sacred
precinct – and my belief is it will remain so until the end of time."
Travel essentials
Getting there
Athens is served by British Airways (0844 493 0787; ba.com) and Aegean Airlines (00 30 210 6261000; en.aegeanair.com) from Heathrow, and by easyJet (0843 104 5000; easyjet.com) from Gatwick and Manchester.
Bus X96 runs every 20 minutes from the airport to Piraeus, the port for
Athens. Hydra is served by regular ferries from (0030 210 41 99 000;hellenicseaways.gr).
Buses run from Athens to Mycenae every hour or two, taking a couple of
hours. See ktel-argolidas. gr for schedules and fares.
Staying there
La Belle Helene Hotel, Mycenae (00 30 27 510 76225). Doubles start at
€40 (£31.50), including breakfast.
More information
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