The Pirate Bar is an oddity, even for this column: a bar and restaurant themed in homage to a pirate, whom I consider to be generic, and Leonard Cohen. It is in Hydra, a three-hour boat ride from Piraeus, and Cohen’s home in the 1960s with his muse — this means unpaid female servant who also provides sex — Marianne Ihlen. He bought a house on the hill with an inheritance from his grandmother. Thus are famous hippies made — with inherited money.
Hydra is known as Leonard Cohen Island. The locals don’t mind living on Leonard Cohen Island. ‘Cohen?’ asked a native, as I loitered on the steps of his house on the hill. ‘He was my friend.’ The pharmacist was also his friend. He told me how they drank together, while I was buying Nicorette gum.
Hydra is not only famous for Leonard Cohen, of course; it was mentioned by Herodotus, was an important maritime power in the 18th century, and also hosted Princess Margaret. But that is presumably less interesting than being Leonard Cohen Island — for he was that strange thing, a sexy Jewish nerd running away from Montreal. It does happen.
In Hydra you remember how awful cars are, because it doesn’t have any. They are banned. Instead, a small fleet of donkeys stand on the quayside waiting to carry the shopping up the hills, should you lack a muse to do it for you. Cohen knew he was accepted in Hydra when the rubbish donkey — I mean the donkey that collected rubbish — called at his door. ‘It is like receiving the Legion of Honour,’ he said.
The Pirate Bar (formerly called O Peiratis) is a tourist café, in case anyone thought it could ever be anything else, which often hosted Cohen.
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