No traffic, no pollution, no sound of engines revving at midnight; car-free destinations may be few and far between these days but there’s no better way to escape the clamour of modern life.
Perhaps the most delightful car-free retreats are the ones situated most closely to cities: the contrast only adds to their allure. Sail away from Athens for a couple of hours and you will reach Hydra, a car-less island popular with artists and writers keen to fuel their creativity under an azure sky. Henry Miller visited Greece at the invitation of Lawrence Durrell in 1939 and wrote ‘The Colossus of Maroussi’, an ‘impressionist travelogue’ partly based on his experiences of Hydra, inspired by Greek writer George Katsimbalis. Miller said: ‘The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being.’
Leonard Cohen bought a house on Hydra in the 1960s and a road was named after him.
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