getting to Hydra from naufplion .

Do you have Rick's Greece book? If so, there's a lot of detail on pages 253 and 406. Without a car, the most common way is a bus from Nafplio to Ermioni (with transfer at Ligourio) and then catch the Hellenic Seaways ferry. With a car, that also looks like the best port to drive to.

Thank you Laura. Yes, we always have a car.

Ummm, what were you planning to do with the car? No vehicles are are allowed on Hydra except the local ambulances and garbage trucks.

Drive to Metochi. Catch a water taxi or ferry. The drive to Metochi is sightly closer than to Ermioni. The water trip from Metochi is 1/2 as long as from Ermioni as well.

Always call first as weather can delay and cancel the taxis and ferries.

That's a good point Lo. When we get to Greece the first thing we do is rent a car and head to the Peloponnese. Another reason I posted the question. What do you do with the car? I should have included that. I knew cars were not allowed.

You might try messing around with this Greeka search form to find anywhere that you can depart from the Peloponnese with a car for Piraeus and on foot for Hydra. Or maybe you could send them an email. That's assuming your car rental agency will allow you to take the car on a ferry.

I played around with it a little and there were no car ferries from the Hermioni area (or from farther south and west) to Piraeus. If you left your car there, you would have to go back to it, then drive to where ever else you are going through somewhat mountainous terrain. But then, you would have done that already getting from Nafplio to Hermioni. Narrow roads in pretty poor condition and without lane lines is what I remember from our bus ride.

We did the opposite direction in late October. I remember noticing a parking area at the port when we arrived in Hermioni from Hydra, but you would need to find out about how long you could leave your car there along with the costs and safety of doing that. Perhaps the Greeka folks would know.

Holman, YOu also have to consider that, with most Greek rental agencies, dropping off the car in a different city from pick-up will cost you and INSANE extra amount of money. That's because most agencies -- even large ones like Avis -- don't have the constant interchange of cars you're used to in the US. So, to retrieve your car, the agency must send an additional car, with 2 drivers in it, to bring it back. One person I counseled a few years ago wanted to rent a car in Thessaloniki, and a week later drop it in Piraeus. The car rental was 300E for 7 days, the pick-up charge was 260. Since then, a few agencies may have offered no-charge drop-off for some major places but it would require intensive searching.

As Lo says, if you're just visiting Hydra and then returning to Peloponnese, just see about leaving the car in a lot. If you are going on to Pireaus, different story. Agency could charge €€€€ to pick up car in Ermioni. If u share more details of your planned itinerary, then we don't have to work up multiple scenarios, guessing about plans. (We might even talk you out of Hydra ... yes, Rick promotes it ... but aside from a no-cars lovely harbor scene + a lot of fresh pistachios, what is the draw? In Nafplio Old town, 95% of streets are no-cars. I can name you numerous islands where, on most roads, you won't see more than 2 cars an hour. ) Bottom line: sharing more enables us to be more helpful.

We just made the trip from Nafplio to Hydra last week (with a stop at Epidavros). We had a rental car that we parked in Metochi. Many thanks to Joe Hawaii who posted the exact address for the pier in Metochi...not an easy place to find! The parking lot was secure and the boats were efficient and easy to coordinate with. Hydra was beautiful...not to be missed!!

Question for Joe Hawaii: "Drive to Metochi. Catch a water taxi or ferry. The drive to Metochi is sightly closer than to Ermioni." What route from Nauplio to Metochi- along the N side thru Kalloni and Galatas? How long is that drive?

Mary:

We drove from Nafplion to Metochi stopping at Epidavros on the way. We used Google maps to find our way. Here is the route we took.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Ekklisia+Agios+Charalampos/Epidaurus+Theatre,+Epidavrou+Tripolis,+%CE%95%CF%80%CE%AF%CE%B4%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82+210+52/@37.493994,23.2136836,11z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x0:0x99e9296ba52176e4!2m2!1d23.41714!2d37.40761!1m5!1m1!1s0x149f8bc5e7b2f867:0x47ba752e3e5ec40b!2m2!1d23.07963!2d37.59608

We took the route that was about a hour and 15 minutes. It went through a number of small towns and was a fun drive (even in the rain). You can see that an alternate will take you past Ermioni. (not worth stopping at in my opinion).