One of the most charming aspects of Mykonos was the main town. The “town” of Mykonos is named Mykonos or Chora (Greek for “town”). We learned from Wikipedia it’s a tradition to name the main town of an island after the island.
Mykonos town shared some similarities with Fira in Santorini. Almost every building was white with blue accents. Most of the main area of town was only accessible to pedestrian traffic. Many of the town’s streets were barely 6’ wide. Chora was the hub of the island – home to dining options, clubs, and bars.
Noticeable differences from Fira: Mykonos is not high up on a cliff so it had a nice working port area where fishing boats, tour boats to Delos, and cruise ship tenders docked. The charm of Fira was the cliff views and the caldera. In Mykonos the charm was in the windy streets and seaside cafes where the water could splash you at high tide. Since Fira (and Oia, a destination we visit later in the trip) were cliffside cities their streets were more-or-less linear. Chora’s streets went all over the place and many times we feared we’d never find our way back to a particular shop or restaurant. Mykonos, being a party island, had huge hoards of young people traveling in packs.
Sunset viewing is an event in Mykonos. One night we were able to convince a hostess to give us a small seaside table right along the beach with a great sunset view. We lingered over drinks and bread service in order to stretch out the time until the sun hit the water. Once the sky darkened after the sun disappeared we saw a shift…. The older folks and families like us were heading back up the hill for buses and cabs while the teens and twenty-somethings came down the hill in masses with some of the young ladies chugging from their personal bottles of white wine. Stay classy kids!
From a photography point-of-view Mykonos town is just awesome! There are the famous windmills, Little Venice (some folks from Venice occupied Mykonos for a time and built an area on the water in their architectural style), fishing boats, churches, narrow alleys, etc. The seaport in town was a crescent shape of land that was loaded with sidewalk cafes and gelato stands. This was a perfect place for an afternoon lunch. An added bonus was getting the water view perspective from our ferry to Delos.
Town was ten minutes from our hotel by car. On our first adventure to town we attempted to take the local bus. The stop was near our hotel. When the bus approached us it stopped about 100 yards past the stand, let folks off, and kept going. Defeated, we walked back to the hotel and got a cab. What the nice ladies at the hotel failed to tell us when advising on how to use the bus was that the bus continues past the stop, turns, then picks up the folks at the stop and heads to town. After that we relied on cabs and the free hotel shuttle.
Things we did in town: Dinner and sunset one night right on the shore close to Little Venice. We had views of the sunset, windmills, and Little Venice all from one table. The food was tourist class, but good enough for the table we had. After touring Delos we had some pizza and hummus at a seaside café overlooking the main port. Another evening we did some shopping and gallery browsing, had a cocktail at a Little Venice bar, and dinner at a pasta restaurant that had a man making the pasta outside on the sidewalk (street). We enjoyed a glass of wine after dinner at a café where the water lapped right up to the walkway. That was a fun place for people watching. We also discovered there’s such a thing as Ferraro Rocher flavored gelato.
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| Our table was right above the man |
Overall, Mykonos, or Chora, or town, is a great destination. It’s a place that is meant to be explored, and yet at the same time, it’s a place to be enjoyed by planting yourself in a café chair and watch the world pass.
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