Greece: Delos

Our first day on Mykonos was barely spent on actual Mykonos!  We decided to get our hard core touristing out of the way right away and hopped the boat to Delos.

The very bumpy, crashy, rocky, nauseating boat to Delos.  Interesting to say the least!  But the ride was worth it because we were met with this amazing ancient landscape as soon as we stepped off the boat…

The earliest inhabitants of Delos are recorded at 2500 BC!  When was the last time you walked around a city that old?!  Blew our minds.

What amazed us the most is that this is a completely open site.  The public is welcome to walk all over the island among the excavations…we encountered a few basic ropes blocking paths, etc. but other than that it’s open to the elements and exploration.

Some of the bigger artifacts on the grounds are indeed replicas but the originals are almost all housed in the on site museum along with most of the smaller pieces like dishes and weapons.

Yes, this is what you think it is…

The theatre.  Quite remarkable.

According to the brochure: “It is estimated that at the beginning of the 1st century BC, some 30,000 people were living on this little island…”  (approx. 5km long and 1300m wide). 

Stunning.  Hot, dusty and sweaty.  We earned our gelato that day!

Greece: More Mykonos

After a couple of days of touristing around Mykonos-town and Delos (stay tuned for that post) it was time to soak up some sun and relax on one of the beaches!  Based on recommendations we opted for Platis Gialos for our first day.

We spent the whole day on loungers under umbrellas enjoying the sun, the heat, the view, and our new found treat…the Cappuccino Freddo!  Sadly that gloriously beautiful water isn’t very warm…damn you September!

For our second beach day we opted for Paradise Beach.  While it was also lovely and warm it wasn’t quite as nice as Gialos. 

Public transit was incredibly easy to use and reasonably priced.  They rock big tour buses for transporting folks around the island…can’t beat that!  On our way back from Paradise we got off the bus early and tracked down this Starbucks.  We were soooo weirded out that this existed and had to stop to check it out.

It was hands down the worst iced coffee I had on the whole trip…LOL.  But of course I got the mug!

The sunsets were perfect every night!

The cruise ships arrived in droves on our last morning.  We spent the time sipping our cheap wine on the beach watching the shuttle boats go back and forth before heading for our next ferry adventure.

Those waves made for an ‘interesting’ fast boat to Santorini. Gulp.

Greece: Mykonos

On our second day in Greece we had to be up before the sun to meet our taxi and take our first ferry ride.  We were so stoked we didn’t even care that we had to miss our free hotel breakfast in order to make our Mykonos boat.  Besides, we got to see the sun rise!

The ferry was massive and actually quite nice (super comfy seats for those of us with assigned seating…unassigned is a bit of a crazy shitstorm) and we had what I think might have been the best cappuccinos of the whole trip.  For the most part it was smooth sailing and thankfully when it wasn’t I had dozed off due to our super early wake-up call.

The trip from the mainland to Mykonos was something like 5 hours, which included three other island stops along the way.  We would go stand outside on one of the upper decks and take photos at each port because these were our first glimpses of what we expected Greece to really look like.

Once we got to Mykonos I really felt like we’d arrived!  Our super cute hotel was exactly what we had hoped for.  White washed with blue trim, facing the water, close to town, and the super friendliest staff.

Each room was actually a bungalow of sorts with it’s own patio.  Our patio was huge!  Tiffaney was so excited she was bouncing up and down.  :)

We immediately headed out to explore.  First stop: dipping my toes in the Aegean Sea (it’s freaking cold).

Turns out we were a five minute walk to the windmills, and only another five into Mykonos Town.

Little Venice…

This town ended up being our favourite part of the whole trip.  So quintessentially Greek to us, easy to navigate (even though it’s a maze), and fun to explore.

We took ourselves out for a delicious dinner with sparkling wine and made sure to catch our first island sunset right from the privacy of our own patio.

Good thing we had five whole days there.  Love.