MYKONOS, GREECE

Sunday, September 21st

At 5am Sunday morning we woke to catch our taxi to the Mykonos ferry. During the 25 minute taxi ride, I asked our driver about the protest we had seen near the Parliament. He laughed and informed us that there are protests all the time in Athens. He said it used to be worse when the economy was really bad 2 years ago. "When you have people out of work they get bored and then protest. They make it hard for the people that actually do work." It was so true! 

We were the first ones to the port. There were 3 large, high speed ferries docked. We asked a man standing outside where the ferry was for Mykonos. We were standing right next to it! They weren't allowing guests on the boats until 6am. 20 minutes later I decided to ask where the other ferries were headed. He pointed to the first one and said it wasn't leaving until the following day. The other ferry near us was going to Mykonos. The man had misheard us the first time and thought we were going to Milos Island. Oops. That could have been bad! 

We walked over to our actual boat. There was already a large line formed. We still had hope that we would get a good seat. 

They started boarding at 6:05am. We walked on and started looking for a window seat at the back of the boat. A woman asked for our tickets. She then pointed us to 40 F and G. There were assigned seats! Doh! We were right in front of the bar. It wasn't a window seat, but at least we were at the back of the boat! 

Luckily, the ride was smooth and easy. 3.5 hours later, we arrived to Mykonos! We were the first ones off the boat. We walked past a long line of people holding up signs for various hotels. I didn't see ours, so we grabbed the first taxi we could find. It was a quick 5 minute ride through town. 

When we arrived at our hotel they looked shocked. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming? We sent you an email asking you to tell us," the woman at the front desk said. I had never received an email. She told me they had sent it the day before. Ugh. Seriously?! Who checks their email while they're en route to a destination?! 

She informed us we were not allowed to check in until 2pm. It was 10:45am. What to do until then...I had about a dozen questions for her. "Where do we rent an ATV? How easy is it to walk into town? Do you have a map of Mykonos? What are some of the best sites to see? Which are the nicer beaches? Can I buy a ferry ticket for Tuesday? Can we take our pool towels to the beach?" These are all seemingly innocent questions, but the girl acted like I was an idiot for asking them. She told us to go to breakfast and she would answer our questions afterward. Ha!

Luckily, the rest of the staff was very kind and considerate. 

The hotel itself was beautiful! Our location was right on the water, and we practically had our own private beach. 

After breakfast we sat by the pool, then decided to waste some time by going on a photo safari of the main town, Chora. 

The Windmills and Little Venice are the main attractions. I had seen a ton of photos online, and was so excited to see them in person! 

Nick's glasses broke and mine cracked, so we hunted for a new pair as we passed by a few shops. Can you find Nick in this photo?

We found the windmills! 

Jumping photo!

You can literally turn your back and see Little Venice from the Windmills. This area was so crowded. The cafes were packed with people soaking in the view. 

There was a crowd gathered on the walking path. They were all staring down at the water. We could very clearly see an octopus crawling along the rocks. One of the locals grabbed a fishing line and started poking it. He wrapped his tentacles around the line. The octopus didn't seem happy to be poked. 

We moved farther down the tiny lanes to see if we could find the local pelican, Petros. He was a staple around the harbor. We never did end up finding him. Maybe he was on vacation. :)

Nick kept telling me to take off my hat and sunglasses for every photo. I refused because I would look like this if I did. While I took this photo he said, "It's too bright. I can't open my eyes." Haha!

Church of Panagia Paraportiani

Church of Panagia Paraportiani

Church of Panagia Paraportiani

I couldn't decide which photo to post! I just loved this little church.

This was just one of the beautiful views on Mykonos. Behind us was a long stretch of busy cafes. It was quite noisy with all of the tourists eating breakfast. If I had to build a cafe, I would have likely built it along this strip as well.  

I took a picture of this man because I thought he was a local sitting on his boat fishing. Turned out it was just a tourist emptying out sand from his leather shoes. Haha!

We found one of many shopping lanes that led us back to our hotel...

They had numerous designer stores in Mykonos. Who goes to a beautiful island to go shopping?! Not this girl. I can understand getting souvenirs, but I don't consider a designer handbag a souvenir. 

Back at our hotel, we waited by the pool for a few hours until our room was ready.

Once we dropped our things and changed into swimsuits, we hopped on an ATV. We were off to hit the beaches! 

ATV's look so much more secure than they feel. I kept telling Nick to slow down. :)

We drove to Elia beach first and ordered Greek salads. We spotted our first set of topless women. I will never get used to seeing this. I don't think Nick minded as much. 

Nick decided to go for a dip in the ocean. He took his snorkel gear with him. He had been swimming for about 45 minutes before he came back. He told me he went out as far as he could and swam down to the bottom of the ocean... to poop. Eeewwwww! Who does that?! That was when I decided not to swim in the water around Mykonos. (I gave him fair warning that I would be writing about this.) 

I drove us over to Agrari beach. It didn't look as good, so we moved on to Panormos beach. It definitely had a party vibe. There were huge pillows for two people laying out. The music was blaring. That's not usually our scene, but we decided to sit for about an hour. 

This was our view out on the water. There sure were some beautiful yachts and sailboats around Mykonos!

Once the sun had gone behind the mountain, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our dinner at M-eating Restaurant. It was voted #1 on trip advisor for Mykonos. 

But first we HAD to watch the sunset!

So hot. :) One of my favorite pics of Nick. :)

As we were leaving for dinner, we left our keys at the front desk. We told the woman (the same *lovely* lady we'd met before) we were going to M-eating. She said she didn't know how the restaurant got such high reviews because the owner was rude, the staff was rude and the food wasn't very good. Yikes! Now she tells us! 

We found our restaurant in Chora. We had a great table for people watching. Nick ordered a steak and I ordered risotto with truffles. It was brought out in a glass lid. The food was outstanding! I haven't had risotto that good in Italy! 

At the end of our delicious dinner, the owner came out to talk to us. He was so kind! 

I was learning not to trust any local opinions. The taxi drivers in Athens said we were staying in a bad neighborhood, and had never heard of our hotel. The woman at our hotel said that M-eating restaurant wasn't good. They couldn't have been more wrong!

We took a much needed walk back to our hotel after stuffing our faces with delicious food. Even the view at night was beautiful! 

Monday, September 22

The next morning we ate a delicious breakfast at our hotel. (It was nice to finally not have to wake up before 6am!) My staple every morning was yogurt with honey. Nick and I both tried a little of everything they offered at the buffet. They even had baklava! It was so good! We both really enjoyed  the soufflé; it was killer! 

Right after breakfast we hit the beaches. First, we went to the VIP beach called Psarou. It was tiny and way overcrowded. We decided to continue on...

Next we drove to Paradise beach. During July and August it is one of the big party beaches. At the end of September it is nice and quiet. It was one of my favorite beaches. It was very recognizable and memorable with all of the bright orange lounge chairs. (I would have posted some of these photos but I can't seem to find them.)

We sat and watched the taxi boats drop off and pick up tourists right on the beach. We also watched numerous topless women walk by, and enjoyed some iced coffee while listening to the gay couple next to us bickering over taking photos. Never a dull moment on Mykonos! :)

2 hours later, a man came by and told us that our lounge chairs and umbrella were 15 Euro for the day. Usually when you buy food or drinks you don't have to pay for the seats, but not at Paradise beach! We decided to move on to the next beach. 

We drove to Paranga next. It was a tiny, over-crowded beach. It was located right next to a huge hostel, so there were kids everywhere. 

We moved on to Kapari Beach past Ornos. Every seat was taken, so we decided to have some lunch at Hippie Fish. We ordered saganaki which is fried cheese with honey drizzled over it. It was so delicious! I couldn't pass up on my Greek salad again as well. 

After lunch we discovered that the beach chairs were also 15 Euro, so we opted to just lay our towels on the sand. 

Nick and I both set our things down and jumped in the water. We swam out as far as we could. A wave went rolling underneath us. It was strange because we hadn't noticed any other waves before. As we looked back to the shore, we saw the wave take over the beach. People on their lounge chairs were drenched. The few people that were laying on the sand, were completely covered. Our towels, clothes, hats, and my bags went flying. A few seconds later, another giant wave hit the beach. Our things went swirling around in the water again. There was no way Nick or I could swim back fast enough to get our things. We just had to watch in horror as our belongings were being swept away. My purse had both of our cameras in it, our cell phones, wallets, passports, tickets, books, chargers, batteries...I was beginning to wonder why I had thought it would be safe to leave any of that on the beach for a single moment. Nick and I had never jumped in to the water at the same time until now. How could this have happened?! I felt so helpless. By the time the third wave hit, and man noticed our belongings. He ran over and grabbed our bags and moved them. Thank goodness! By the time the seventh wave hit we were back on the beach. I ran up to my purse and opened it. I don't know how it was possible, but literally nothing in my bag was wet. Nothing! It was untouched. I could have cried. I looked up and spotted the young man that had grabbed our bags. I wanted to give him the biggest hug. He was so sweet. He was on vacation from Ireland. Of course! The Irish people are the sweetest and kindest, and once again he had proved this! That situation could have been a game changer for our vacation, but we were so protected! I was so grateful! 

It's hard to tell, but the outside of our bags were soaking...

Everyone had to ring out their towels and clothes, and lay them on the stone wall. I wish I had gotten a picture of the water line. It almost came up to this wall. We were all laughing about it at this point. Phew! 

That beach is open to the waves that are created from the high speed ferries. A huge hydrofoil had gone by about 10 minutes before the waves hit. We won't forget that experience any time soon! 

We rode back to our hotel in just our bathing suits. We put all of the towels and clothes out to dry. My hat was ruined. At least I had 3 days to enjoy it! 

We went back to the other side of the island one last time. The first beach we went to, Sostis, didn't have any chairs, so we went back to Panormos. We sat down on one of the comfy pillows and Nick almost immediately fell asleep. I was grateful. It seemed like there was a parade of boobs walking by. If you want to go to a beach to see slender, tan, topless women with huge boobs - go to Mykonos. They are everywhere. It was a little ridiculous. 

I was grateful to head back to our hotel. We watched the sun set from our beach one last time. 

Nick's pretty sand art. 

I love the sand flying in this photo. 

I made Nick do this pose about 10 times. The last time he landed on his back. Haha!

My poses were a little easier...

:)

For dinner that night we ate at Sea Satin on the water underneath the windmills. We had tomato fritter, fried calamari, tuna tartar, warm bread and tzatziki sauce. It was so good. I love Greek food.

Every meal we went to had cats running underneath the tables. I loved that too! Nick told me not to feed the cats. Guess who feed the cats first? Nick. :)

We had a fun and mostly relaxing time in Mykonos. I think we were both ready to leave. 

Nick still hadn't had an opportunity to kite board yet because we hadn't had any wind...

until we were boarding the ferry to Santorini. Of course! 

Tuesday, September 23rd

The winds were up to 30 knots that morning. Nick took his kiteboarding gear out in hopes that he could find a nice beach to launch from. The wind started to pick up, so he pumped air into his kite in preparation. He quickly discovered that his kite had a major leak. He wouldn't be able to fly it at all. Ugh. After all the effort to get it out there! He did have one other kite with him, but it was much smaller. 

Meanwhile, I sat by the pool and read a book. I could see Nick from where I was sitting. 

I could also see a topless girl along the beach. When Nick came in I asked if he had seen the topless girl. He said, "Oh, you mean the one with the blue suit." (She had a blue thong on) Ha! There was a girl sitting next to her with a full red bathing suit on. I asked what color the suit was of the girl sitting next to her. He said, "There was another girl there?" Oh boy. When were we leaving Mykonos again?

We had a delicious lunch at our hotel, and then we packed to go. A hotel van took us over to the harbor. 

As we stood in line for the ferry, the winds were so strong that we got sprayed with mist. The waves were big in the harbor, I couldn't imagine what they were going to be at sea. 

We watched a plane overhead try to land at the airport at Mykonos. He had to go around several time before he actually landed. 

Our ferry arrived about 20 minutes late. It was quite a spectacle watching the ferry dock,  and then watching thousands of people disembark in a matter of minutes. 

There were probably about a thousand people waiting to board the high speed ferry. I had to try and capture the chaos. 

We all had to board on this ramp. There were people yelling and screaming for us to put our luggage next to the signs for our destination. Santorini was a popular destination, so it was easy to find our sign. 

There were many tourists on board that could not speak English. They looked so lost. The crew was yelling at them, but they had no idea what to do. I felt so bad for them.

Once inside, we found our seats. We had window seats!! Yay!! I was grateful! 

We were ready for Santorini!...