Mykonos

Nov. 15, 2007
Today was the island of Mykonos. I think I have fallen in love with an island! What a neat little island. Little being the operative word. It is just over 20 sq miles...but it is a great 20 sq. miles. We toured the entire island today...starting with the southern end, at St. John's Beach. Quaint little chapels everywhere...every family builds a chapel here. However, there are only about 20 families or clans here...some have over 100 people, and to some extent, everyone on the island is related. Mykonos was settled in 7000 BC.....Yes, that is BC! That just blew my mind. I had to ask our tour guide to repeat that as surely I had misunderstood! And this island has been populated since then! From the late 1800's to mid 1900's there were sometimes less than 1800 people on the island. Shipping used to be the big industry on this island and when the change was made from sailing ships to steam, the inhabitants didn't make the change and slowly the industry died. For that time the island was very poor and most of the population left to go to other places. Then in the late 1950's people discovered this island as a tourist spot. Now, the main industry is tourism and the island's population will swell to over 100,000 during the tourist season. Of course, when the cruise lines are in port that number increases. Right now is the end of the season and a lot of shops were already closed. Many of the houses on the island are vacant now as they are seasonal homes. There were no auto's or roads on the island until 1955 and before then the main transportation was by horse or mule.

We toured the Holy Monastery of Panayia (the holy virgin) which is still a working monastery and there are currently 7 monks in residence. The church is absolutely beautiful inside and is lit by oil lamps, olive oil at that! All the buildings on this island are a pristine white...they are white washed once a year, usually in the spring time. We also saw the Panagia Paraportiani church, which unites four chapels into a unique Byzantine pattern with a single door and graceful arched bell tower. Also there are windmills all over the island....OLD windmills. Years ago they raised barley on the island and the wind mills were used to power the mills that turned the barley into flour. Of course, that is no longer done on the island, but the windmills give it a romantic look.

We traveled through Mykonos Town; through the labyrinth that was old town. Very picturesque and interesting. Very narrow streets (really only walking paths, sometimes for only two abreast) with the whitewashed houses with bright blue or turquoise doors and balconies.

Jack, Suzi and I really enjoyed our tour today. Jack left Suzi and I in town and he returned to the ship early, so Suzi and I wandered around by ourselves for a while. We stopped and had some very poor hummus, but got some calamari to go and brought it back to the ship for appetizers (as if we aren't getting enough food on board!)....the calamari was some of the best we have ever had...excellent.

Al is getting better, but still not able to go on some of these tours. Tomorrow is Ephesus, Turkey and he won't go on that one as it states again "extensive walking".

Our weather is great...beautiful sunny day today. We didn't even have our jackets on, however, I noticed the locals were bundled up in coats! Hmmmm

So, until tomorrow night..........we are still a sailin!