Greece - Mykonos
Original Post: November 6, 2018
In the time it took me to listen to four and a half songs, we had flown from Athens to Mykonos.
We arrived in the late afternoon at Mykonos Beach Hotel, and were awestruck both by the surroundings and the hotel itself. From our room, we had an incredible view of the sea and palm trees. Right outside our front door was our own personal deck area with a table and chairs, where we could relax and listen to the waves.
That evening, we walked into town - about 10 minutes from our door - and went to the restaurant Pepper, which offered a modern take on traditional Greek food.
The following day, a shuttle picked us up from our hotel and took us to the boat port for our cruise around the Cycladic Islands of Greece.
Our first stop was the island of Delos. Originally, we would have had to have paid a fee of 12 Euros to enter the island and go on our tour, but since we were European students, we were able to get in for free.
Delos is said to be the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and because of its sacredness, no human was allowed to be born or to die on the island. However, people did live on the island for centuries. Today, people can still see the remains of shops and houses, banks, theaters and marble columns.
We returned to the boat for a lunch of pasta, Greek salad and fruit sprinkled with cinnamon. While wading in the water, we jumped off the boat into the Agean Sea - it was freezing, considering it was the last day of October - and climbed right back onto the boat. Everyone on the boat happened to be from the United States, so we chatted about all of our travels for a couple of hours before heading back to Mykonos.
Thursday was extremely windy, as we discovered why Mykonos is nicknamed ‘the Island of the Winds.’
We spent the afternoon walking around town, going through the narrow streets lined with white painted buildings with blue outlined features. Outside of the main area of town were several wind mills and all throughout the town were many small churches - famous attractions Mykonos is known for.
We went to the restaurant Nice N Easy for dinner, followed by drinks at Sic, a restaurant off the beaten path. At Sic, we met people from Qatar and shared stories of our lives outside of Greece.
Friday, we decided to rent ATVs from our hotel and drive around the island - we were planning to rent scooters, but the man was worried that due to our inexperience, we would likely crash or accidentally drive off into the water.
We drove to Paradise Beach and on to Ano Mera Square, where we had lunch of pita bread and Greek pizza at Vardaris Restaurant. Passing incredible views through the mountains, we made our way back to the hotel. Since it was Mykonos’ off season, not many restaurants were open - mostly tourist-driven ones for incoming cruise ships - so we returned to Pepper.
They informed us that we were their final customers of the season that evening, and gave us a free starter of saganaki, a common Greek appetizer of pan-fried cheese.
Saturday morning, we had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel and went into town. For lunch, we went to a restaurant on the water called Kadena, which was recommended to us by people we met on our boat cruise earlier in the week.
We spent the rest of the day sitting by the water in town, and reminiscing on all we had done in one short week.
Sunday was spent packing our things up and flying back to Athens, where we spent the night at a Holiday Inn right outside of the airport. Monday morning, we arrived at the Dublin airport, making our way back to Maynooth and back to reality.