The Second Post of the Island Adventures...Mykonos and Delos

 Post 2: The islands continue to Mykonos and Delos

And now we move to the more familiar of the Greek islands. Mykonos was first and it was full of the expected and unexpected juxtaposed in what overall was a beautiful island. Firstly, the expected, the whitewashed buildings and the crowds and the heat were all that I expected. In saying this however, I don’t want to suggest that being expected dulled the beauty of it. The small streets meant that every corner revealed a beautiful walkway, shop or scene of some description. As you might or might not know, all the houses are white and the restrictions mean that all doors and windows can only be painted blue, green or red. Fun fact - this is from the tradition where sailors painted their doors blue, farmers painted their doors green and everyone else painted their doors red.

Our hotel was a 10 minute walk from the ‘old’ part of town and the hotel had stunning views over the sea and sitting on the balcony in the early morning or the evening was very special. I should comment on the food because every meal has been delicious and on our first day we had souvlaki which I wanted to do and it was worth it. I also had lemon coke. I liked it but don’t take that as a recommendation because I can imagine that others wouldn’t like it. The unexpected? The wind! It was so windy. Another unexpected delight was the delicious Mythos beer which apparently doesn’t taste as good outside of Greece so this will just have to be something I enjoy here. 

We did a day trip to Delos. This is an archeological site which was the supposed birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Our guide was really informative and it was such a treat to learn about ancient Greek history. Some of it was familiar from uni days and it was a reminder of how much I enjoyed studying it. I have included some photos of Delos:

One of the particular things I like about visiting a place is meeting people from the area and talking to them about their perspective. It has been interesting talking to our tour guide about his perspective of Greece and the EU. It is a very different perspective than what we have in the Australian media and has made me much more sympathetic to the plight of their people. The Greek people have been under some type of occupation for many years and now they are at the mercy of the EU. It is sad to see a culture with such a rich heritage suffering so much. I also didn’t appreciate how bitter the conflict has been between Greece and Turkey for so many years. Even the name ‘Greece’ is a name that was imposed on them during the Ottoman occupation and they prefer to be called Hellas. It is these conversations that are a highlight of my travel and the day after I began rereading Homer’s Odyssey.

Mykonos photos: