Travel Thursdays: Greece Part 4 – Mykonos

If you missed parts 1, 2 & 3, you can check them out over here:

• Greece Part 1 – Athens
• Greece Part 2 – Santorini
• Greece Part 3 – Paros

From Paros we hopped onto yet another ferry to get to Mykonos.  We left Paros at 12:50 and arrived in Mykonos at 13:30, so the shortest ferry trip of the bunch…  We were super excited to see Mykonos, maybe too excited, because if I have to be brutally honest, I really didn’t get why people make such a fuss about the place…

Out of the 4 days / 3 nights we were there, the wind was pumping on 3 of the days, and I’m talking Cape Town South Easter style wind (like when they had to cancel the Argus earlier this year), but full blast, 24/7 with no breaks… Actually no, words can’t even explain it, here’s a short video clip to show you what I mean (SOUND NEEDED – give it about 3 seconds, then it really kicks in):

Mykonos town itself also felt a little less sparkly compared to Santorini & Paros, which (only in my opinion of course) are way way prettier, and unless you’re buying high-end, designer labels, the shopping is pretty much non-existent…

I think it’s best summarised as follows:  If you’re super wealthy and can afford to live it up 5 star luxury style 24/7, Mykonos has swanky hotels resorts/clubs/bars/shops to suit your needs.   If you’re young and want to party it up 24/7, the nightlife scene seems to be pretty big.  If like me, you’re somewhere in the middle… there’s plenty of other islands to explore.

We stayed in Sahas Studios in the Tagoo area (close to Mykonos Town) which we booked through Air BnB (check out the listing over here).  It cost us R1976 per night (R988 pp per night), so the most expensive booking of our trip & by far the least impressive.  I mean it was clean and all, but verrrry basic.  By basic, I mean this:

Location wise it was just a 10min walk into Mykonos town, but even so, you did feel a bit out of the way.  There was no little corner shop nearby where you could just pop down and buy some water and snacks, which did get a bit annoying (especially in that wind – btw did I mention the wind?).

Mykonos Town has it’s cute bits, but like I mentioned above it didn’t quite have the charm of the other islands we visited.  I’ll show you a couple of pics and you’ll probably think “well that does actually look super nice”, but remember – you can’t always capture the wind that well in a photo and I’m also a boss when it comes to good photo framing. 😉

So ja, definitely not too bad in parts… But this photo captures the reality quite well:

THEN… on our last day there… it was like the universe had decided to bless us with a miracle… a (relatively) windless day!!  We decided to embrace this gift and make the most of the day, kicking things off with a seaside lunch, then a visit to Super Paradise beach, followed by a dinner in Little Venice.

To get to Super Paradise beach, you catch a minivan from the main bus station in Mykonos town.  It costs about 9 euros pp for a return trip and takes about 20min.  As with Santorini, finding a taxi on Mykonos island is impossible & we weren’t that keen on driving, so this really was quite an easy option.

Super Paradise (although a bit cheesy) was pretty cool.  On the day we were there it was very chilled, but I hear it can get pretty intense.  You need to pay to use the loungers which was 20 euros for 2 for the day.

Here’s a little video clip to also give you a feel of the vibe:

Come late afternoon however, the wind picked up again and by the time we got back to Little Venice for that dinner, things had become a bit unpleasant again…

So would I happily recommend a visit to Mykonos?  No, not really…  I could’ve easily skipped it in favour of another island.  Skiathos & Skopelos are definitely high on my list for my next visit.  Also possibly Corfu.  With 30 islands to explore in total, I’m keen to check out a few more, that’s for sure.  So yeah, Greece will definitely see me again at some point.  Apart from those few crazy windy days in Mykonos, I really loved the place, the people & the food.  At one point I even felt like I could’ve been Greek in a previous life.  I mean, who doesn’t want to channel their inner Greek goddess right?

After Mykonos we caught a quick flight to Naples for the last little stretch of our trip…  but I’ll tell you all about that next week.

xxx