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| Church of Panagia (the Virgin Mary) Paraportiani |
After another day at sea, we docked in Mykonos, an island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. According to Greek mythology, Mykonos was named after the grandson of Apollo, who was also a local hero and ruler. It’s known to be windy, and it sure was, but at least we had sun. We had a walking tour of the old town, Chora, which is also designed to deal with the windy conditions. The winding, narrow alleyways help to break the strong winds, making it more comfortable to navigate on windy days. They also make it quite an adventure to find your way back to the main port. Mykonos has a large number of churches, with over 600 documented, including the famous Panagia Paraportiani (see main photo), a unique, asymmetrical church made up of five smaller churches. We stopped at The Church of St. George, a popular place for weddings. Another interesting stop along the way was Gioras, the oldest working Bakery on Mykonos island, dating back to the 18th century.
Mykonos was once a popular haven for pirates and Little Venice, with its unique architecture, is rumored to have been a place where pirates hid their treasures as they had easy access to offload from their boats. Another feature and one of the things seen when coming into the harbour of Alefkandra, is the Windmills. Most windmills face towards the North where the island's climate sources its strongest winds over the largest part of the year. There are currently 16 windmills on Mykonos, and most of them were built by the Venetians in the 16th century, but their construction continued into the early 20th century. They were primarily used to mill wheat.
After walking around Chora, we took a bus across the island to an organic vineyard for some wine tasting and snacks. The island is very dry, and the grape vines grow very low to the ground, mainly because of the high winds. You can see in the photos how low they are! Mykonos is said to be the site of the Gigantomachy (the battle between Hercules and the Giants) and is formed from the petrified bodies of these defeated Giants. Indeed, it is very rocky and dry. We also learned Mykonos has a strict color code for houses; the windows and doors should be painted blue, green, or red as a means to maintain the authenticity of the island as a tradition since sailors back in the day used blue to paint their windows and doors, farmers painted them green, and red was used by everyone else. You can certainly see this as you explore the area! We then returned to Chora, wandered around, and enjoyed a snack at Nikos Tavern - yumm!
We ended the day with a gorgeous sunset off the bow of the ship. Next up, return to Athens, and on to Sifnos!Have you ever been to Mykonos? Leave your comments below! Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.
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