Mykonos

With all the many sites that we visited on the trip, with ancient Roman and Greek ruins, Mykonos was a delightful change. I know why it is a favorite of the Yacht crowd.

We arrived early in the morning and docked just outside of the main town. As per usual for the cruise line, they convinced us we had to pay $18 for a shuttle bus that would take us the 1 mile to town. Cruise line did not tell us that if we got off the boat we could have walked or taken a $4 local shuttle. Typical for cruise line. Anyway we took the expensive shuttle.

The Island is barren but covered with these white buildings. Blaine mentioned that you could make a fortune if you had the monopoly on white paint for the island. Obviously it is a law that every home and building must be white stucco.

So we wandered (along with the 7000 other tourists from cruise ships) through the tiny town. The streets, well you cannot call them streets, the paths between the stores and homes are narrow and twisting but with the white walls they were bright. Took no time at all to get to the other side of the town where we saw the old windmills that are the feature of the island (see pic 1)

We had been convinced by the travel brochures that we had to visit one of the fabulous beaches so we picked Paradise Beach because it was the most famous. Blaine and Lisa rented a Quad and I rented a scooter but Pat and Krystal took a bus.

I have not used a motorcycle or a scooter for 40 years so the first thing I did was fall over and skin my leg. Still got used to it and rode the narrow roads trying to find Paradise Beach. Blaine and Lisa got immediately lost and I never saw them again until later on board the ship.

I eventually found Pat and Krystal on Paradise beach but it was a huge disappointment. Totally covered in lounges that you have to rent. Thousands of people. Never actually saw the beach but Pat and Krys found me and we decided to go back to the ship. On the way back I took the opportunity to wander through some back roads on my scooter without being killed by the traffic and eventually made it back aboard.

From our balcony on the ship (see pic 2) we realized there was an even better beach just a 1 km walk from the ship. Krystal went there and told us we missed a great beach.

I told everyone on the ship the next day in the pool that my leg injuries came from a high speed motorcycle accident where some jerk forced me off the road, but as I said I just fell over.

Lovely island, lovely day. Just wish we had skipped Paradise beach although I did like my afternoon on a scooter.