Hydra - the north side

As I said in a previous post Hydra town is crescent shaped, the land hugging the sea and port. On this occasion we decided to walk on the north side, or the right side of the town as one looks at the sea. The 'excuse' was to visit the Old Slaughterhouse gallery where George Condo's The Mad and the Lonely exhibition was on.

This is the quiet side of the town

imposing stone houses on the waterfront

white steps leading up to the residential areas higher up. Like everywhere on the island, the Hydra flag flying next to the Greek one

The Historical Archives Museum

A motorised vehicle! What a shock! The fire engine is one motorised vehicle allowed on the island, together with the garbage truck

I tried to see who that was, but there's only a quote. It's a fighter from the Greek War of Independence, I think.

More steps - we have a friend who lives up at the top, and it's quite a hassle climbing up

The turning point

The harbour on our left, and we can also see the other end of the crescent from here

and a good view of the town 

and this is the bit we had just walked on

We turned the corner

canons everywhere in Hydra, left overs from the War of Independence. When the Greek people launched their war of independence in 1821 against the Turks, Hydra emerged as a leading naval power. The harbor, with its twin forts and plenty of cannon, housed and protected the fleet of 130 ships. 

Dusk settling in and the rocks and houses taking on a golden hue, but it was still so very very hot

Many Hydriot merchants became wealthy running the British blockade of French ports during the Napoleonic Wars. Hydra enjoyed glory days in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when the island was famous for its shipbuilders. You can see the evidence of this in the mansions that all around the island.

We were slowly walking uphill so the drop down to the sea kept getting higher

Not too many people around, just a few, as it was so hot

The first view of the art gallery

A fabulous sculpture by Jeff Koons at the top - who would have thought that I would like a piece by Jeff Koons, but there you go...

The old slaughterhouse, perched on the coast,  was converted into an art gallery in 2009. It's owned by Dakis Ioannou, and it's an outpost of the Athens-based DESTE foundation. Some of the big names of contemporary art have had exhibitions here, including Kara Walker and Kiki Smith. This is not your classic stark white gallery: it's still very much got the essence of what it was as the structure hasn't been  altered much at all. It is not far removed from its use as a place to kill animals. 'It's a slaughterhouse', Kiki Smith said, 'You can see all the aparatuses for killing goats. And so if you do anything in a space of that kind of physical harshness, you have to respond to it'.

Dakis Ioannou who created the art gallery said: 'We come to Hydra all the time and I saw this place that was deserted and on the water, and I had this idea of doing something.  I started with a specific concept, to have a mid-career artist do a serious project. It was not about younger artists experimenting or anything like this. It was about a mature artist really putting in some effort to connect to Hydra'.

This is where the animals were initially put and as you can see, nothing has been altered here.

Now, the sculpture on the roof of the building. The Apollo Wind Spinner, a 9.1 meter high reflective wind spinner by Jeff Koons, left over from when he had his exhibition here in the summer of 2022. The face of the wind spinner is that of Apollo. The rays of the golden sun sculpture turn like the sails of a windmill as a breeze blows over the Aegean. It looks very impressive from a boat.

On the way back into town we saw these two very big private yachts entering the harbour. Celebrities and rich people flock to Hydra, but this will be the subject of a future post.

And then we were back, and it was time for pre-dinner drinks and then something to eat.

For the exhibition by Kiki Smith go here