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

So I got up at 8:30 and had breakfast with Steve, did some photo transfers from the cameras (this will turn out to be important soon) and video camera onto my laptop and backed everything up to Steve’s external hard drive. Steve and Rachel went to sleep and I went down to the lobby to meet the rental car agent at 10am. We ended up with a blue Chevrolet Matiz, it was tiny and had a 0.8 liter engine!! The agent told me we might have to turn the A/C off going up steep hills with all 3 of us in the car. Okaaay. I decided to do some exploring while Steve and Rachel caught some z’s and first went get some gas. I put 20€s in and should have known that would be way more ... read more

We didn’t want to waste the day sleeping again so we set the alarm for 10am and actually got up at 11am. Not too bad! We headed to the beach in front of the Far Out Club. Steve was hoping it would be busier there and it was a little bit but not crazy like he hoped. Also the Meltemi boat rental place put all their kayaks in front of us completely blocking our access to the water. The water was much rougher down this end of the beach and the waves had everything churned up. The water’s edge was sandy up to about knee depth then it was really rocky and that made it hard to get in and out of the water. We stayed at the beach until about 4:30 then went back to ... read more

We were up at 4:45am to get our transfer at 5:30am to the ferry at Piraeus port. Our ferry was Highspeed 6 and was at 7am. It’s always a huge pain in the ass to get on the ferry with a bunch of luggage, but we had no other choice but to bring it all with us to the islands. I think if I did it again I would pack much, much less stuff. We left our large bags down in the auto garage luggage storage area and headed up to our assigned seats. Poor Rachael got stuck next to an annoying guy who hogged more than his share of space. The ferry took about three and a half hours to get to Ios arriving about 10:30ish. Our transfer/agent was waiting for us when we arrived. ... read more

So much for an early start before it got too hot out, slept in again – Damn! First up today was Hadrian’s Library. It was really hot out again so we took it slow and walked around the ruins taking loads of photos. Hadrian’s Library was built by Roman Emperor Hadrian in AD 132 on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens. The most important monuments of the site are: - Quatrefoil Building. The building with the four apses, dated to the 5th century A.D., an Early Christian church - Church of Megale Panaghia. The first church was a three-aisled basilica, built in the 7th century A.D. on the ruins of the quatrefoil building which had been destroyed in the 6th century A.D. The basilica was in its turn destroyed in the 11th century A.D. ... read more