Weather – sunny with a breeze
Photo: On the breakfast balcony with Mykonos in the background.
Note well: I had to be quick with this photo - see the forks coming in!
Desley sitting at our table under the camouflage net on the beach....just before we tucked into some beautiful fare!
Temperature – late 20’s
I knew I was on holidays when I was speaking to two women at breakfast and we all concluded it must be Thursday…..only to learn later that it was Friday!
Over a latish breakfast on a balcony overlooking Mykonos town we decided to hire a car for the day and explore the island. After investigating where to hire a car (next door!) we picked up a Nissan Micra and gave David the task of driving on the right hand side of the road as he had the most experience.
We ‘tootled’ (a good word for the 30 kph speed limit which the locals don’t obey) around with Cameron navigating and Desley and I directing in the back as to when to stop for photographs. Driving around was fairly easy although many of the streets were abutted on both sides by dry stone walls so there wasn’t a lot of leeway for passing cars in opposite directions.
The island is very barren with small clumpish bushes which are very thorny. Not much else grows on the island although at some stage I wondered if they had kept animals as there are dry stone walls everywhere dividing up the rugged landscape.
We stopped at the first beach, Kalo Livadi and dipped our toes in the water. There weren’t many people and the water was a beautiful blue. We moved on and stopped at a high hill overlooking Kalafatis Beach where the wind nearly blew us away! Once again the views were spectacular albeit rugged and barren. The white houses with blue shutters, windows and doors were dotted here and there and all placed strategically to take in the views.
We drove into the only other town on the island – Ano Mera – and walked around the beautiful ancient market square. A wonderful old church (the Monastery of Panagia Tourliani) in the centre had a tall marble bell tower and housed many icons. The front altar screen was hand carved and held many icons…..this church was completely over the top and for a little church it was such a delight.
It was coffee time and we chose a gorgeous little restaurant with royal blue tablecloths. We sat indoors to avoid the sun and decided at the last minute to order a doughnut to share….we weren’t being mean as the doughnuts in Greece are huge…and we hadn’t tried one yet! The owner wanted to know if we wanted icecream and Desley replied in the affirmative. I said: ýou said yes to icecream with a doughnut?’ As it turned out once again we were lost in translation and out came deep fried individual crispy doughnuts (not round) smeared with honey and we were grateful to have the ice-cream with it.
We continued to tootle around the island with a map of indifferent directions and found our way to Panormos Beach where the beautiful crowd lay sunning themselves on cushions or had retreated indoors to have leisurely lunches at restaurants on the sand. Desley and David immediately were in the water and Cameron (after some serious thinking at the water’s edge) went for a swim in the crystal clear waters. It was too cold for me!
To provide some respite from the sun the restaurants had placed camouflage webbing above where grape vines are normally. They provided filtered sunlight for us while taking in the magnificent view of the beach. All the tables were in the sand. We had another delicious Greek lunch – a platter of assorted dips, olives etc and salad.
Continuing our tootling around we passed more rugged coastline, called in to see the old lighthouse and then made our way back to Mykonos. There were three enormous ships in port – one ship (Celebrity Equinox) had ten levels above the main deck!
We returned about 4pm and made plans to meet up before dinner to enjoy drinks and watch the sunset over Mykonos town. It was then onwards and downwards to Little Venice to seek out a restaurant for dinner.
Another great day in a beautiful part of the world!
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