Mykonos- More Hot and Lots More Tourists

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Untitled Monday-Thursday
Arrive in Mykonos before 7... in the morning. We got up at 3:45am in Athens to catch a taxi to the airport for the 20 minute hop across the Aegean Sea. Just to let you know, we saved more than a few bucks for our pain and suffering.

MYKONOS GOT WIND. Plenty of wind. But it helps keep things cool, most of the time.

Mykonos is the kind of place best seen up close. From a distance it looks like a bunch of white rocks, which are the white-washed houses, on top of a pile of brown rocks, the island. It's as barren as a desert with hardly any green to be seen. Fortunately, we stayed at a beautiful hotel which irrigated the trees and flowers around it. We had an outstanding view of the water and "natural" beach. I soon learned that the definition of a beach in Greece is "rocks near a body of water." Our beach had the boulder-size rocks. But sometimes the rocks are like gravel and sometimes they can be grains of sand. The hotel would set up an umbrella for you if you requested, but how they would get it in the ground is beyond me. The whole time we stayed there I never saw an umbrella out there.

If you are a sun worshipper, Myknonos is for you. The sun is virtually guaranteed. And the beaches are great, generally set back in sheltered coves. We enjoyed two beaches during our stay, Super Paradise and Elia on the southern end of the island. The beach at Super Paradise was made up of small gravel while Elia had sand, I think an uncommon beach. All the beaches that I saw had "permanent" thatched umbrellas with lounges/sun beds, restuarants with huge outdoor patios, small markets, and restrooms/showers. If you aren't into baking in the sun all day (me), sitting in the shade of an umbrella was an ideal place to be.
Though the beaches were very good, getting to them was another story. You have your pick of transportation: over-priced taxis, rented scooters or cars, huge Greyhound-size buses, or, of couse, walking. Our hotel, which unfortunately was about 3 miles from town and farther from the good beaches, provided a free shuttle to the port only and that left only every 2 or 3 hours. I wasn't crazy about being at the mercy of their time schedule, but it worked out for the most part. Once we arrived in town, since we decided to take the bus, we had to walk to the bus station, which could be way up the hill or across the street, depending on where you were headed. The problem was it wasn't always clear which station you needed to be at at what time. The day we wanted to go to Elia Beach, the hotel staff told us to go to the bus station at the top of the hill. But when we got there, the guy told us to go to the one across the street from where we were originally dropped off. That's transportation on the islands.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking why didn't I just rent a car or scooter. Well, if you'd seen how people drive on these narrow, and I mean narrow, streets, you'd understand. When taking a taxi or bus, my advice would be to look at the scenery to the side of the vehicle. If you looked straight ahead, you probably wouldn't get much sleep that night. Big buses pass little scooters around corners... over a double line... while another vehicle is going the other way. Need I say more. And they do it all with the accelerator pushed to the floor. My fantasy of driving a scooter all over the island was squashed on our taxi ride from the airport the first morning. But better to squash my fantasy than my body.

Oh yeah, about the city. They don't allow vehicles, except for ones bringing in food and stuff, so it's relatively free of cars. Relatively being the operative word. It still gets crazy. Again, the beauty of the city rests in seeing it upclose. The buildings are bright white with mostly blue doors and shutters. The narrow, stone-paved streets are swept and mopped continuously. Of course, if they weren't, tourists would be ankle deep in cigarette butts. Greeks and/or the tourists that come here love to smoke and they love to do it everywhere. Whereas in most restaurants in the U.S. it's unlawful to light up, it's common here.

The Pelican-
Apparently the town of Mykonos has adopted a pelican. Or it has adopted them. It hangs around the old port mostly, walking around shops and restaurants. One night Bruce and I were eating at a restaurant near the harbor and we got to see why the old bird hangs around. Someone from the town feeds it. Heh, why go out and work for your meal if someone is willing to give it to you?

Another interesting thing about eating at most restaurants is that most of their tables are out on the street/sidewalk which are NOT level, so you feel like you're eating on the deck of the Titanic during its final hours. For some reason I usually sat on the up-side.

Attack of the feral cats-
Lots of feral cats around the hotel; in fact, there were lots of stray cats around every place I've been on my trip. But one night I was walking up the hill by myself to our room in the dark. All the sudden I hear these cats screaming and could barely make out two cats running in my direction. Before I knew it, the first one ran into me at full stride. I've never had a cat run into me before. Can't they see better in the dark than we can? It scared the ba-jebees out of me. Needless to say, I quickly made my way up the hill and locked the door behind me.

Stupid lady-
One morning I came down for the buffet breakfast. There weren't many people up yet. When I go to where the toaster is, I find a lady giggling about something. Well, the thing she's giggling about is her piece of toast got stuck in the toaster and was on fire with smoke coming out the top. I reach over and turn the toaster off. What a moron! I must have been thinking aloud because after she sat down her husband and her looked over my way and they didn't look to pleased. Idiots.



Overall, my stay in Mykonos was great. We met plenty of people along our way from all over. Even with the crush of people, everyone was courteous and I didn't see anyone "go off." I would recommend that you visit during the off season unless you like dodging around people, standing on the bus, and paying high prices... for everything.

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