Today we call at the Island of Mykonos, where getting lost is a goal! As we meander through streets engineered to stop pirates from looting, winding turns and dead ends deliver us to one of my favorite jewelers in the world, just in time to select my 20th Anniversary present (never leave such details to chance!) before settling down to lunch in Little Venice, where we will admire the windmills and dine to the song of the sea.
Among the Cyclopean Islands, beauty is measured in relative terms, abundant in virtually every seaport, village and cobbled street. As with most of our itinerary, the Old Town of Mykonos, the most famous of the Cyclopeans remains relatively traffic-free, affording visitors a rare dose of unspoiled serenity replete with pristine breezes, stunning beaches and fresh Greek delicacies, all only footsteps from our tender’s docking point!
Odysseus would still recognize the colorful caïques, one-man boats dotted throughout the wharf, some with the occasional fisherman checking his nets for today’s catch. The islands actually derive their name from the Cyclops once thought to dwell here until he was outwitted by the man Homer called the “great tactician”.
On this idyllic island, it is a no-brainer to forego museums and tours for an appetite-inducing day of see-breezes, sunlight and shopping, with a dash of bird-spotting from a perchance cafe tucked into the miasma of the island’s deliberately senseless street grid.
With all the food just-picked fresh, you’d have to go out of your way to find a bad meal here. We will work up the requisite appetite with a stroll through this cacophony of whitewashed buildings. Trimmed in azure, they create the surreal impression of a world suspended in summertime!
As in Venice, getting lost here is half the fun! It’s not a worry, as you need only make your way to the top of the hill, until, like clever Odysseus, you will easily spot the route back down to the wharf. This is tremendous fun and compels us to pass the myriad boutiques owned by locals, stocked with unique goods ranging from jewelry and accessories to clothing and home furnishings. I deliberately select Med itineraries with a call at Mykonos just to complete my Holiday shopping! You just cannot get gifts like these at home!
We walk around the coast to a tiny Chapel which is the home of Petros the Pelican! Actually, he is Petros II or III, no one is really sure. His namesake and ancestor, Petros I, counted none other than Brigitte Bardot and Jackie Onassis among his lady friends!
We are reminded of our first visit here years ago when we sighted the “Christine O,” the very ship that Jackie O once sailed here on, sadly sold to investors after the death of her husband, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onasis. Ironies abound as numerous as dead-end streets, which i will no-doubt ponder later onboard the Jewel.
In any event, Petros is the Mykonian’s mascot, and while his storied past would fill a Dan Stone novel, he is presently entirely too occupied with the octopus being tossed to him by a friendly fisherman to pay the slightest bit of attention to us! I wonder if he knows we aren’t “his kind” of people? Our yacht is bigger, even if we are sharing it with several thousand others! I never,,,!
Having been sufficiently snubbed by this nouveau riche fowl, we are off to shop some more, and will share our “scores” later in this series!
