Looming into view, as the ferry from Athens approaches its harbour, Hydra seems like any other island at first. Fluttering Greek flags wave me into port, white houses gleam in the sunshine, all of them spilling down the hillside towards the calm sea. I can hear glasses clinking in harbour bars and see B&Bs owners beside the dock waiting to whisk visitors back to their premises.
“You get used to it,” says Harriet Jarman when I meet her the next morning, after walking through town to her stables, Harriet’s Hydra Horses. Her eight steeds are busy chewing noisily on fresh hay. “You see elderly women carrying three bags of shopping,” she says. “My son had to learn to walk at 18 months because I couldn’t carry him.”
The next day, I catch sight of Harriet as I’m walking back from a beach swim, leading her group of horses along Hydra’s sole cliff path, which unfurls either side of town along a five-mile stretch of the north coast. Hydra is fairly barren with few roads; your only options to reach some of the coves is to sail or walk.