Friday Oct 19, 2012 – Mykonos, Greece

We enjoyed yesterday at sea, and caught up on our sleeping, reading and relaxing. Thursday night we sailed into the Greek Islands and Friday morning we docked for half a day in Mykonos. Mary remembers it as a celebrity hot spot when she was a kid and now it still has a pretty old town area with a maze-like area of white shops that seem to get nicer the deeper inside you go. There are villas dotted all over the brown rocky hillsides, and all the villas are colored the same bright white.


It was very windy but the temperature was in the mid 70’s and it’s supposed to stay warm the next few days for us. Mary had some luck shopping and bought a hand stitched white summer top. She needed something cooler because she brought mostly long sleeves for the Ireland part of her trip.

The streets in old town were really narrow and it was easy to get lost. I had a map in my pocket but reading the street names in Greek took more than I could do quickly. I started worrying about getting stuck inside the maze and not being able to find our way out in time for the ship’s departure. We made it out and back in plenty of time, so it was just me over-worrying, again.

Mykonos has lots of friendly pets wandering the narrow streets and we stopped to say hello to more than a half dozen cats and dogs. At a café where we stopped for coffee, a huge pelican decided to lumber his way inside. He didn’t want to leave and had to be picked up and tossed out by our waiter. Mary was already outside waiting for me to pay the bill and she was petting the big guy’s feathers when I walked out. When I wouldn’t let the big bird back inside he started biting on my leg; nothing serious but his beak was sure big. I finally got a picture of our ship on the way back, the ship’s size makes it impossible to get into one shot unless we’re far enough away.

We got underway on time at 2:30 and are sailing for the Dardenells and Istanbul. We’re not sure how much of the narrow straits between Europe and Asia we’ll see in the dark when we get close, but we’re hopeful. On Saturday in Istanbul we start another three straight days of touring, so again hopefully we’re rested up and ready.