Day 9: Athens to Mykonos
By JoeBruin88. Filed in Travels |Tags: Greece, Travels
Early Bird: We had to get up at around 5:00 AM to have Aunt Voula drive us to the metro station. We were going to take the metro to the port of Piraeus for our ship Blue Star Ithaki leaving at 7:35 AM. Taking the metro was the cheapest and fastest way to get to the port, much faster than going by car with Aunt Voula.
Déjà vu: At our transfer point in Monastiraiki, we ran into the college student from Maine, Sarah, again. She was on her way to Piraeus also to take a ship to Santorini. We invited her to come to our family reunion party on Saturday.
Blue Star: We found our ship very easily. It was the first boat in front of the metro stop in Piraeus. The boat ride was a long and boring 5.5 hours. The funny part about the trip was some guy smoking behind Josephine and exhaling the smoke directly behind her head. So she got a large piece of paper and fanned the smoke back.
Throng: There was a large crowd of people waiting as we “disembarked” from the ship. They were holding up signs for hotels and advertising. They kept asking us if we had reservations for a room or if we needed a room, but we already had one. The problem was that we couldn’t find our sign. After five minutes, Josephine saw some guy holding a clip board that had a piece of paper with our name on it.
Alkyon: The travel agency’s mini-van took us to our beautiful tropical hotel. The white plaster walls with blue trim reminded me of an old movie about two lovers in Greece called Summer Lovers. Check out the pictures for more views of the hotel and the great view from of the town of Chora from it.
Exploration: After taking a quick shower and unloading some stuff in the hotel room, we set out to explpore the port city of Chora. It’s filled with winding narrow roads and intertwining little streets where the homes seem connected as well as the little shops that attract tourists. After a little prodding for Josephine, we spent a good four hours exploring the little town.
Some Stuff: I saw a restaurant called El Pecado. I think its name was meant to be in Spanish since it’s right on the shore. But if it’s supposed to mean “fish,” they spelled it wrong. Fish in Spanish is El Pescado, while el pecado means “sin. ” But who knows, it could be intentional since apparently there are lots of churches in the town, about one or two on every street. Each house has its own church. Plus, it could be appropriate considering that there seems to be a lot of gay visitors to Mykonos according to Josephine’s relatives. In fact, we saw a gay bar directly across from a church.
Another interesting thing was this guy selling shells near the port. He was trying to get people to buy some shells: “Don’t just look, you can buy them too.” He wasn’t exatly the best salesman. I took a picture of this huge conch and he said to me: “No photos. These are not for photos.” As we walked away, I replied: “They’re not for buying either.”
Alefkandra: We ate dinner right next to the water at a restaurant called Alefkandra, next to the famous Mykonos windmills. For dinner we had Greek pizza. It was very very good!
Sunset: After dinner we took a cab back to the hotel. We couldn’t pronounce the name properly so the drivers didn’t recognize what we were saying. But then I remembered my hotel key, which had the name of the hotel on it. We watched the sunset by the pool, but the sun set behind the clouds, so it wasn’t as good as we were hoping it would be.
