Greece

Mykonos – A Maze with Whitewashed Houses

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

It was still dark out when we got up and I had the hotel to arrange a taxi the night before because of our early flight – 6:30 am! I had set three alarms: one from my phone, one from the room clock, and a morning call. Sounded like I am paranoid right? Well that was the truth LOL after the incident that my phone alarm didn’t go off because I set it wrong! The taxi came right on time at 4:30 am after we checked out and the cost of taxi from Sheraton to the airport: 23 euros…not bad! I gave the driver extra tips, I felt bad that he had to wake up this early!

The flight was only one hour and they gave out chocolate chip cookies as breakfast, it was actually very tasty!  Right after we finished our cookies and had a sip of our drinks, it was time to stow everything away for landing! Love those short flights and have food! We landed in Athens at 7:30…flight to Mykonos at 10:45 am. I originally booked the 9:10 flight but thanks to all the crazy schedule changes from Aegean Airlines, we had to wait extra 1.5 hours at the airport. The airport does provide free internet but only for one hour! The photos that we took so far definitely helped me to get through the 3 hours layover!

Our plane:

It was almost a full flight! The 35 minutes flight..guess what…cookies again! This time we really had to rush to eat and then prepare for landing LOL!!! Here it is…Mykonos!
We landed in no time and once we got out of the gate, the guy from the hotel was there holding the sign with the name of the hotel: Alkyon. The hotel provides free shuttle from both the airport and seaport. It was one of the reason why I chose this hotel. Other reasons were: free breakfast, affordable rate ($390.45 for 3 nights), great reviews, and located on top of the hill for the best view of Mykonos Town.  On the way to the hotel, I felt like I am a little kid: every time I saw a cute house, I told my husband “look at that aww so cute”! It was our first time to Mykonos, I did have some idea of how it looks like from pictures from the internet, but it was very different when being there and see it. My first impression of Mykonos: cute marshmallow houses! The houses reminded me of marshmallow with curved edges and white! I can’t wait to see the town!
When we arrived at the hotel, the lady in the reception gave us a map and recommended restaurants for lunch and dinner, that was what I called services! The room was not ready yet so we had to wait….this was the first time I didn’t feel like wasting time waiting because of this:

 The view was unbelievable!  My eyes were blinded by the whites reflected by the houses LOL!

 

A panorama of the view from the hotel:
Hubby couldn’t wait to post photos to share with his friends!
White and blue heaven…this is the Greek islands!

 Our room is ready, the lady took us out the main building and to a marshmallow house on the back, our room was located on the first floor of the 2 story house. The size of the room was okay and the bathroom was clean:

 

She also showed us a shortcut to walk down to the town in less than 10 minutes. Here came our adventure of exploring Mykonos Town! It was definitely an adventure getting to the town -.-
First, we had to walk down the hill, some parts did have steps but some don’t and narrow:
We passed by this cute little church:
Then, walked through a little tunnel, it was a short tunnel that we had to bend over to go through!
It wasn’t too bad walking down but walking back the hotel will be another story….We made it to the town wohooo! The first restaurant we saw, it was so cute! Cute will be definitely my word to describe Mykonos!
We walked through the maze of tiny streets and eventually found our way to Little Venice and to avoid tourist trap of having lunch there, we ended up having lunch at this little corner place: first pita of our trip..yummy and affordable!
Sitting at the corner, having our tasty pita and looking at tourists walking by, definitely a special experience 🙂

Next to the corner store, a stairway with a story to tell:

After our quick lunch, it was time for exploring the town and souvenir shopping! The winding little roads with whitewashed houses on each side was the most memorable of Mykonos to me. The road that normally takes 15 minutes to walk took us erm…I lost track of the time! I literally had to stop every three steps to take pictures! The street split into two, the middle house was so cute!!! I wished we could set up a tripod and have a picture of me and hubby but way too many people passing by and it’s a long way to go back to the hotel 🙁 The pattern of the stone road and the whitewashed house in the middle was even more beautiful than I expected! The little balcony made me wondered what it’s like to live in that house, wake up in the morning, open the window, and see the wonderful town!
We picked the left side first and found this pretty shop with colorful scarves hanging out and the beautiful Bougainvillea tree flowers leaning out!
The white house with blue window frames, door, and stairway, I really like the simplicity of their houses!
Without knowing, we ended up at the famous Panagia Paraportiani Church! This architecture is definitely one of the most unique churches I have ever seen!
This one reminded me of white chocolate!
On the back of the church is the sea with tons of seagulls hanging out there.

We turned and headed back to the town to explore the other side of the split street.
It was a maze but a beautiful maze!
I apologized for stepping into people’s doorway to take photos xD
This is the entrance of a disco/club, empty in the daytime of course 🙂

More photos of the tiny street and cute houses!

Another church…did I mention that there are like 400 churches on the island?
Tiny street filled with different shades of blue colored stairway rails!

Without knowing our way, we ended at the port side of Mykonos!
Had to sit down to take a break from walking 🙂

While taking a break, I saw this fisherman fishing right off from the beach! The water is crystal clear that I can see a lot of fishes!
To avoid getting sunburn, we took the back street to get some shade on our way to the port. This street is a little bit different than the rest with white arches. Tiny street with no car but there were motorcycles constantly passing by so be careful and watch out for them!
I wasn’t kidding when I said crystal clear water:
Those black dots were sea urchins!

Alright back to shopping and photographing the cute houses and streets!
I really like this store with the different size of white lamps on the steps.

Dark pink handrails to match the flowers!

The town is filled with souvenir shops, cafes, restaurants, and night clubs!
I stopped by this house, it was one of my favorite!

Light green doorway, first time I see this combination but still pretty!

 

A beautiful restaurant with this huge Bougainvillea tree!
We found the restaurant that the lady in our hotel recommended for fresh seafood: Kounelas Fish Tavern but it was too early for dinner…had to wait for another hour for it to open at 6:30 pm!  We walked back to the beach area to sit down, relax, and of course take more photos!
A panorama of the bay area surrounded by whitewashed houses:
Finally, a blue domed church right near the water!
This old man was painting his boat with blue….hubby said blue and white paints probably the best selling colors in this island haha!
I like the colors in this picture and the reflection of the whitewashed houses on the water!
We walked back to Kounelas Fish Tavern, they have this adorable back garden setting:

Food…..hubby ordered the sea urchin, he said must be very fresh since we saw many in the water LOL! It was a small appetizer than he expected, he said it was definitely fresh! The price for this small amount of sea urchin: 10 euros.
In comparison of 15 euros, here was what we got for steamed mussels….huge plate! It was the best mussels, cooked perfectly, that we had in our trip!!!
I started to like mussels after our trip from Cancun!
For main course…we ordered the grilled seafood for two!  We had the fried seafood for two in Symi and it was huge but look at this one!!!! Really need to compare it with me LOL to realize the size of it! One whole grilled sea bass, calamari, octopus, my favorite king prawns, potatoes, rice, and salad!!!! It was so delicious! It was definitely one of the most memorable dishes of our trip!
They even gave us a house wine afterwards haha!

Wondered the cost of our huge dinner?  It was 79 euros, totally worth it!!! I highly recommended Kounelas Fish Tavern for fresh seafood!
After dinner, we made it to the Windmills just before sunset so lucky! Passed by Little Venice and snapped a photo of it! The restaurants here were filled for dinner with view of the sunset!
Here they are..the Windmills of Mykonos!
Regardless of what time you are there, there are always tourists! Rule of thumb to be a good tourist: do not block the view once you are done with your photo, let others have a chance!
Sunset…another day in paradise!
It was a long way back to the hotel and we stopped at the bus station before that to take a photo of the bus schedule…..itinerary for tomorrow: beaches!

The road back to the hotel was 10X harder than walking to the town! The steep hill definitely burned all the food I ate during dinner! The back road to the hotel will be scary to walk back at night I thought. It was probably the only reason that if I come back next time, I’ll pick a hotel right in the town. Other than that, the view from the hotel was spectacular, even better near dusk when the sky painted the whitewashed houses!
Our room was located on the house on the left on the first floor, wasn’t that cute? We had a little sitting area as well 🙂
Good night Mykonos – you are cuter than I thought!

7 thoughts on “Mykonos – A Maze with Whitewashed Houses

    1. Oh yes, there’s always great pitas for only a few euros! If you don’t go crazy and eat seafood like we do, food in Mykonos is much cheaper than other major European cities! There are a few mini-markets in Mykonos town. Why don’t you book a hotel that includes breakfast so save one meal 🙂

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