Mykonos, Greece - Cruise 3

Trip Start Jun 12, 2008

Trip End Aug 25, 2008

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Flag of Greece Mykonos, Cyclades, Greece
Monday, July 14, 2008

The library was the perfect vantage point this morning as we gracefully sailed into the Mykonos Greece shores lined with white plastered homes and picturesque windmills. After finishing my shift at 11 AM I grabbed a bite to eat and then grabbed my cameras and headed to the gangway. The ship parked about 20 minutes down the coast with shuttles moving the multitude of guest to the center of town. Upon exiting the ship and seeing the hour wait for a shuttle I decided that my own two feet would provide ample locomotion and began the trek. The roads to Mykonos was narrow without sidewalks or shoulders to the road. I met up with a group of crew also walking in to town and we trekked together yelling "car", "bus", "truck" or whatever other appropriate vehicle was trying to run us over. We managed to protect life AND limbs and made it safely to the center of town.

Mykonos is very old with narrow cobble streets and alleys flowing in random directions

Windmills and white walls

. The town planners purposefully laid the city out to create a sense of confusion and lack of direction in case of infiltration by their enemies - unfortunately the city is so small it is impossible to get lost as the sea lies nearby from any given direction.

The windmills created a scenic backdrop to the town, but the blades were without their "sails" and therefore not quite as quaint as the postcards depict them to be. One of the smaller, family owned, windmills on a different hill still had the fabric attached so I took photos of that to help give a feel for what the large ones would have looked like.

After a day of dodging cars and laughing as Greek men yelled at each other for no reason while using lots of hand motions I walked back towards the ship in very strong wind gusts. At moments I couldn't even move, while going through the motions of walking, I fought against the wind so strongly. A friend whizzed by on a bicycle and informed me that a beach he had frequented was on the windless side of Mykonos - windless side?? Was there such a place? I had no idea! I'm not a bathing beauty though, I choose to NOT frighten the rest of civilization, so it was better that I enjoyed walking through the town and walking back to the ship. On the way back to the ship I walked onto a narrow bridge and basically blocked the oncoming lane of traffic (remember the lack of pedestrian areas) and had a coach bus stop on the other side of the bridge and throw up his hands in disgust - think hand aerobics while yelling, really it is quite funny - and I did it right back at him. Yes I did, I mean honestly there was no sidewalk and I'd already spent half the day NOT getting run over by crazy Greek drivers I was going to cross that bridge and he'd just have to wait for me. He waited in disgust and I felt very Greek as I walked chuckling to myself the rest of the way to the port.

Hope you had a bit of humor in your day today as well. Signing off from Greece,

-T

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Typical street view in Mykonos	Windmills on a hill	Street view of shops in Mykonos	Homemade windsock on porch
Balcony view	Boat by the water	Boats	City scape
Dinner with a view	Do they work without sails?	Door in white wall and white seagull overhead	Feathered pelican friend of Mykonos
Greek tree	Hand carved door	Interesting lines and curves in white	Laundry lines and lights
Lighting the way	Meet the famous pelican of Mykonos	Mini mill on a hill	Mini mill with sails
No mice in Mykonos	Port of Mykonos	Private windmill on the hill	Red and blue boat
Red and white is also traditional here	Red pot on rail	Red, white, and blue	Resort villas - one of many in Mykonos
Seagulls flock to this fishing village	Traditional Greek style church	View of town from the windmills	Wildflowers on the roadside
Windmills of Mykonos