Blogs from Mykonos, South Aegean, Greece, Europe - page 6

One of those absolutely great days of travel that makes all of the little problems along the way seem not only worthwhile, but essentially meaningless in the big scheme of things. Set off from Piraeus on the 7:35 ferry to Mykonos. And really I don't think ferry is the right word. These are basically cruise ships that are huge and have restaurants, bars, gift shops, you name it. So the 5 1/2 hours it took to get to Mykonos went relatively fast, and was broken up by stopping at the islands of Syros and Tinos on the way. Mykonos is the first great Cycladic island you reach if you set off from Athens. It's most famous for its just-across-the-water location to Delos, the heart and center of the Cyclades, and home to the most important ruins ... read more

I got up to arrange to pick up our tender tickets as we had to tender into Santorini. We met for breakfast at about 8:30 am on the ship. Jill and I decided to walk up to the town of Fira. It is the same walk that the donkeys take when they carry tourists up to the town. We knew there were 588 stairs to get there. From the ship looking up at breakfast, the town looked pretty high up on the bluff. Physically, the walk wasn't too bad. It took about 25 minutes with a few short stops to take pictures of the ever increasingly beautiful view as we rose higher. The stairs were about three feet deep, ten feet wide and four inches tall. Also, it was in the shade the whole way. So ... read more

At home we have a book called 100 places to see before you die. Lots of the places mentioned in this book are far flung around the world, like to Cook, or Galapagos Islands. One of the more do-able locations was Santorini, which is 3 hr ferry ride north of Crete. Santorini was once a huge volcanic island when an immense eruption blew a hole in the middle around 1450 BC. It is thought, that this could be a possible site for the lost city of Atlantis. Today, Santorini is a stunning Island with white villages, clinging to the cliff edges. Although touristy, with many cruise ships, backpackers, and couples searching for that romantic place. The villages and the views - particularly at sunset, are a must see. It was here at one of the restaurants ... read more

Fresh off of the hardest 8 days of partying we've ever done our voyage took us to Mykonos. Unfortunately for us we quickly found out the cheapest purchase on this greek island was a 12 euro strawberry daiquiri which left us with little hope of saving much money on this step of our trip. After getting settled in at our new base camp we began trying to wrap our heads around another night of drinks and whatever this famous clubbing island had to show us. While enjoying some ouzo in our tent we were joined first by a couple kiwis who were on this adventure they called "van tour" which consisted of the most obscene set of rules all resulting in a beer funnel if rules were broken and a large group of rowdy guys wrecking ... read more

Last day & night on Mykonos! We got up around 11:30am and headed straight to Paradise Beach to check it out since it is the most famous beach on Mykonos. It was actually pretty challenging to find Paradise Beach, the signs were a little inconsistent at the intersections and we had a couple of wrong turns that took us at least 20 minutes out of our way. We finally stopped and asked directions and made it down to the correct beach. Basically Mykonos is a big hill that sticks up out of the ocean (as a lot of islands are I’m sure) and due to the folds of the valleys and indentations of the shore line there isn’t a way to circumnavigate the island. To go from one beach to the next you must go back ... read more