Here in Nidri, one name surpasses all others; Onassis. The shipping magnate, airline owner, sometime whaler is held in such high regard here that unlike other mythical or legendary individuals (Odysseus, Cleopatra, Zeus etc) you won’t find his name used in marketing – there’s no ‘Onassis Taverna’ or suchlike.
All of which is perhaps a little strange, as Onassis never stayed here, although he bought the island of Skorpios opposite the town. Come to that, he never stayed on Skorpios either, preferring to live on his yacht, the ‘Christina’.
The yacht (all 325 feet of it) was named after Onassis’ daughter. Christina was convinced that Onassis’ second wife Jackie Kennedy was cursed, owing to the untimely deaths of JFK and his brother Bobby, but she could never convince her father of this. It turned out she may have had a point however, as Christina lost her entire immediate family (father, mother, and brother Alexander) within a 29 month period in the 1970s. Christina herself died in mysterious circumstances in 1988 aged just 37.
By all accounts Aristotle was an urbane and socially mobile chap. He liked to pop over to Nidri and have a few beers in Nick the Greek’s taverna. This is one of the original tavernas of Nidri, and it’s still going – pop in for a beer and you can find photos of Onassis with the owner (who is also still going) and contemporary newspaper cuttings.
Onassis is remembered with a splendid statue on the town quay. The inscription reads ‘Men have to construct their own destiny’, a saying that was handed to him by his grandmother when he was a boy.
Onassis died in 1975 and is buried on Skorpios alongside his son.
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