Bratsera

One of its most charming hotels Hydra, in a building with a long history, worth visiting even if you do not live there, is the Bratsera.

It is located a few minutes from the port and closes in its beautiful courtyard, large areas on the ground floor and its 26 rooms, a story going back to the 1860s.

When the Nikolaos Verveniotis, A merchant of Hydra and then Mayor of Hydra, buys at the urging of some English merchants who had visited the island, 15 boats for sponge fishing. The boats started every May with supplies for six months and fished sponges along the shores of the entire Mediterranean. They returned in October with the sponges, washed them, sorted them according to size and quality and packed them in balls for export. This process employed 150 families in Hydra all year round and brought great profits to the shipowner. In 1893 Verveniotis bought the building especially for the processing and storage of sponges, which were in great demand in Europe. After the war, it became difficult to trade sponges, due to the import of plastic sponge, but the factory still sent sponges to Russia for the needs of its submarines until the 1980s.

Bracera was the name of the boat, on which the spongers rested and slept, but also where the first processing of the sponges took place, before they arrived at the factory in Hydra.

So this name - Bratsera - was chosen by Christina Nevrou (daughter of Vervenioti) to give to the hotel he built in the mid-1990s, restoring it with respect and passion, giving it a new life. An architect and her ally in this arduous but also creative work, he was her close friend Dimitris Papacharalambous, in which Christina left the hotel when she passed away prematurely, in September 2016.

Whatever is said about the aesthetics of Bracera is a little. What more can you say since Dimitris, the architect of the hotel, was awarded the EUROPA NOSTRA Award in 1996, for the special project of the regeneration of Bratsera. Each of its 25 rooms, which are flooded with plenty of natural light, has a special character, combining modern and old elements, whitewashed walls and decoration with nautical souvenirs.

The Virani Suite occupies the upper floor of a separate building dating from 1750, while its roof is decorated with gilded handmade friezes.

The kitchen of Bratsera has an extremely tempting menu, with dishes of Greek "teased" traditional cuisine and others with Mediterranean references.

The Bratsera is open 8 months a year and its restaurant welcomes them whether staying there or not - for breakfast, lunch or dinner - all day, by the pool in summer, or if it is cold, in the warm atmosphere of the restaurant.